Bearding the Loa
by isuccumb
Summary: Resurrection? Merely step four of ten. Piracy and plotting. Further affronts to heathen gods. Love and romance, not necessarily occurring together. JE in time, among others
1. The Burgundy

**Disclaimer: **If I owned it, I'd be making blockbusters not fanfic, right? Right.

**Chapter 1: _The Burgundy_**

There were men in the water, swimming desperately for land, and Will Turner felt ill. He had seen far, far worse before, more times than anyone should be able to see such things and live, but still. He'd seen ships burning and ships lying on the waves in splinters and men _not_ swimming among the wreckage. Ships dragged without a trace below the surface by tentacles straight out of Revelations – he'd seen that too. Far too often, he'd actually caused the devastation, simply by being a hunted man on another man's vessel. But still. Tonight, the shore was near enough that the strong swimmers would certainly make it. It was nothing in comparison to before nor would it be, undoubtedly, to after. But Will had never before forced a man to the rail at the point of his sword and ordered him to leave all he owned to stronger people who believed they had a right and leap into the sea. Precisely speaking, he still hadn't. His fellow couldn't swim and had fallen to his knees gesticulating and pleading in frantic French. But Will had never before been party to such a thing.

There was a considerable portion of the French crew still on deck, in fact, huddled and cringing but shouting for all they were worth, and their eyes as they darted from sea to Mr. Gibbs were wild with panic. Gibbs looked more than anything like he was sorry this job had fallen to him, but also quite like the damnable wailing might soon overcome his last reluctance to toss them all over the side. "They want the longboat, Mr. Gibbs," called Elizabeth, climbing from the main hatch onto deck.

"Well, I know that, missy. You c'n tell them we need it ourselves or not, either way it changes nothing."

"Or they want to be taken onto the crew."

The roll of Gibbs's eyes was something mighty in itself. "Ye're a thick lot o' gobs, if ye think ye'll be joinin' this crew not able to take an order in plain English and feared o' the very water 'at bears us. That kind o' sorry thing might pass on some ships, but not on _The_ _P_…" He cut off abruptly and cast a pained glance at Elizabeth.

"_The Burgundy_, Mr. Gibbs."

"Aye, _The Burgundy_."

"There are a fair few empty casks down below and more that can be drained if need be."

Gibbs cracked a tired, relieved smile at that. "Drained, eh? Ye're a perpetu'l danger to good rum, lass."

"Not rum at all."

He nodded. "'S all right, then. Down t' the hold, wit' ye. Fetch th' empties and what else is needed an' toss 'em over wit' these sorry excuses fer seamen." He barked the last to a knot of Tia Dalma's people, who were standing well-armed and impassive, looking on at the scene. Disturbing really. But they moved off readily enough, able to take an order in plain English.

"Can you swim, Mr. Gibbs?"

"Not a bit of it, lassie. A good sailor 'n' pirate ought never t' be findin' himself _in_ the brine."

She smiled – a rather hard smile, but 'hard' had been the word for Elizabeth these past few days. Will found a little place bored out of the solid horror and illness inside him to hold yet a new shade of his admiration for Elizabeth. Even shaken and _grieving_ – well, they were all grieving; he didn't blame her – as she so obviously was, she was magnificent. Goodness amidst all of…this…care for those poor, vanquished men, and such resourcefulness. Will wished he were a poet. She…granted life with a face set in stone. Except for that smile. He found another little hollow of non-despair for a touch of unfocused gratitude. It had been a cynical touch of humor, but it was a world of improvement over that first night, when they'd all been reeling but the rest had been able to sleep.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

They'd been exhausted when they'd arrived, cold and sorrowful as Tia Dalma had said, and near quaking from the strain of running for so damn long. But they couldn't have slept. The thing to do, the only thing, had been to hunker down, nurse wounds, and hold the solemnest of wakes for a man who'd surprised them all in the end. Then Tia Dalma had spoken, extracted promises, and played her great reveal. And faced with an emotion that by the morning might turn to hope but felt at that first instant only like shock, they'd found it all finally, completely too much. Just as soon as good reasons for wakefulness had appeared – explanations needing to be begged or wrangled from the witch, plans needing laying and courses charting, and someone, no, everyone needing to keep a close eye on Barbossa – they'd sagged in their chairs and begun nodding into their cups, and wakefulness was impossible. Their hostess had thrown open a cupboard of rough blankets and foreign tapestries and told them to bed down as they would.

Stretched between two of the softer offerings and halfway to unconsciousness, Will had made the mistake of reaching over to Elizabeth and taking her hand. He'd meant it to be a comforting clasp, but her grip had borne down and locked, and the pain had jolted him out of sleep. She'd been completely unmoving, and a whisper of light filtering in from the vigil candles of the mourners in the swamp had glinted in her eyes, letting him see they were open, but narrowed, staring – glaring – into the gloom. If she'd even been aware of it, perhaps she'd gotten some comfort from crushing his hand.

"Elizabeth?" A tiny, nigh invisible shake of her heard and somehow her grip had tightened. She'd been as rigid and unassailable then as she'd been in the longboat, announcing Jack's sacrifice with that stubborn, imperious dignity that always made him fear, even as her almost-husband, to call her Elizabeth, always made 'Miss,' at the least, or perhaps 'Highness' seem better and safer.

His hand had been caught, and he'd ended up sleeping in some pain.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Gibbs watched her move off – stalk off, really – down the deck. She paused for a moment beside young Will and ran a hand down his sleeve almost absently. The boy offered her a weak smile and turned his gaze to the water. "Terrible, isn't it?"

"Could be worse," she returned, her eyes picking over the rigging, before she continued on her way. A fine woman, that. Practically not a woman at all, what with her being steady on the decks and actually useful.

The first casks were arriving now from below, and the Frenchies were still wailing. "Heave, lads!" Gibbs called out and seized a blubbering prisoner. He quite relished tossing him over and the lovely splash that followed now that he knew he wasn't truly condemning the man to death. He sent the next nearest captive after his crewmate; Pintel and Ragetti joined in, chucking Frenchman with glee; and Tia's silent followers tossed floats to the fallen.

A minute later Gibbs stood at the rail, a long sigh of relief meeting the sea air. A little flotilla of men clinging awkwardly to makeshift floats paddled along a swath of moonlight toward shore. Thank the powers that was over. He'd been an honest seaman before turning to more…opportunistic sailing, and it was one thing pirating under Captain Jack and another, he'd always known but was coming now to really _know_, pirating under Captain Barbossa. With the one men might lose their lives in battle or a plan gone awry or by falling behind; with the other men might be killed in cold blood. Gibbs was quite glad Barbossa hadn't seen him dithering over tipping _The Burgundy's_ original crew into the drink.

All – or at least one thing – was well, though, the Captain had been off with the witch inspecting the new vessel. There the pair of them were now, standing at the helm, Barbossa with one hand on the wheel – _Captain _Barbossa, and as touchy as Captain Sparrow if any forgot – heads together and voices not carrying an inch. The rest of the deck was fairly clear. There was Elizabeth, still stalking about. There was young Will, being shortly told by Claude or Dembe or one of that lot that his assistance was _not _required in stowing Lady Tia's precious cargo of dried bits and braided grasses in one of the aft cabins. And there was Cotton, waving an arm at his parrot, which clearly considered the topsail yard a better perch at the moment. But otherwise…some would be below decks, but they were running with a short crew just now. Wouldn't hurt to take on considerable extra hands when they provisioned for this voyage to…wherever they were going. Well. There was a stout deck beneath his feet now, and thank…thank the sea herself, they could be done with all this _beginning_ business. He marched up the steps to the bridge deck and joined the pair at the wheel.

"Begging yer pardon, Cap'n, Ma'am. But as the vessel's now ours, where we be takin' her?"

Barbossa looked him up and down as a shark might look a sardine side to side. "Can't say as I rightly…"

"We do not know," the witch lady's voice sung through the Captain's growl.

Gibbs gritted his teeth. She had a fine air of mystery about her, but mystery would get you so far on open water and no farther. Still, courtesy, when dealing with the mad and the dead. "I know you say so, ma'am, (should he be addressing the captain; he didn't know) but we've a dishonestly gotten vessel beneath our soles now, an' she can't just be sittin' here. We're not needin' a last port o' call, but if ye've so much as a compass bearin'…"

"It has been how many days? Seven? No? Only five. And did I not say seven? If those days have not passed then I cannot tell you where we sail."

"Captain?"

"Orders at this time are t' listen t' the lady." Barbossa tipped his head toward Tia Dalma and smirked with great relish at Gibbs.

"You sailed under Jack wid'out a heading for how long? Can you not sail for him for a time wid' as little?" Barbossa's face did something downright twisty – clearly, watching the witch play merry hell with his first mate's sanity was less entertaining when she invoked his murderer's (if the boy and Miss Swann could be believed) name. Still, the captain made no move to stop her speaking – something to remember… Gibbs addressed himself to Tia Dalma.

"An' if we'd had a heading sooner, mayhap we wouldn't be makin' this voyage now at all!"

"You cannot have what does not yet exist." He could read, though he didn't care to. He'd seen a book once in a peddler's stall, _Folk Wisdom & Neat Sayings._ He'd bet Tia Dalma owned it. Had memorized it. If she hadn't bloody written it. Bloody woman. If she _had_ to be aboard, she sure as hell shouldn't be orchestratin' th' entire voyage.

"Look here, ye damned woman! A headin's not no little fancy! We're needin' to take on crew an' lay in provisions!"

"Then take us where we may do these thing, Mistah Gibbs." She smiled beatifically with her black teeth. As infuriating as she'd been the past five days. Not a jot better than that first morning when their so-called conference must have shamed whatever hell Jack was in now.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

They'd rolled out of their blankets that morning bleary and bewildered, and the witch had served them stewed fruit and fresh coffee that she'd offered to spice up for any who so desired. "No rum," the lass had grated out. She'd looked bloody awful – puffy-eyed and brittle and white beneath the color the sun was beginning to sear into her skin. For all it looked to be a mad woman speaking, Gibbs had nodded sadly and traded mugs with Cotton. The man could be as drunk as he liked and the bird would answer as cleverly.

"P'rhaps after we've chatted a bit."

"Don'ja trust me, Joshamee Gibbs?" the witch had crowed with unexpected delight. "Jack trusted me."

Everyone in the room had looked at her incredulously, even the ones who didn't know what 'incredulously' meant. Then Elizabeth's gaze had shifted to Barbossa. "Even if so, Jack trusted where he oughtn't have sometimes."

"It seems to me, that when we're talkin' 'bout raisin' the dead, I either want t' be so drunk th' idea don't scare me witless, or sober enough t' think about it real careful."

"You would not take back the vow you swore last night?"

"Can't recollect as I swore a vow. Said I'd do it. But a man can't do a thing, not knowin' what it is or findin' it's not what he thought, so I want to hear from you, your proposal as it were."

"We all would," the boy put in.

"Well, den. Let's chat about it."

Only it hadn't been a chat. It had started out to be a conference, all of them crowded around the little rough-hewn table. But the more the witch had flashed her smug, knowing smile around, the more it had become an interrogation, and Tia had met every question with an answer that answered nothing. Once the first person – Will, it had been – had shoved back his chair to take a turn pacing furiously around the hut, they'd never made it back to the table all at once. They'd ended up stomping about, swatting at the low-hanging herbs and oddments, bristling at one another from shadowy corners and snapping accusations from between banks of candles. A bellowed oath interrupted them every time someone forgot to duck that damned dangling green flask of…something. And through it all Tia Dalma had kept her seat, eased back as comfy as a queen at her court or a lady at the theatre. He still wasn't sure what that day had accomplished.

"What do we do?" they'd asked. Actually, Will had glowered and growled, "The first thing we want to know is what he's doing here!" with a finger quivering at Barbossa. But Tia had been so implacable with her, "We come to dat later," that they'd asked, "What do we do?" and she'd replied, "It is very simple. Firs' we will need a ship."

"O' course, a ship. An' then?"

"Den you will take me where I mus' go."

"Ye're comin' along?"

"Why would I not?"

"Women on board…it's a bad business. Bad luck."

"Is she not comin'?"

"Miss Elizabeth? O' course. Oh."

"I speak to the spirits dat can return you your captain. 'Less you's plannin' t' fetch 'im back wid 'luck,' Mistah Gibbs – but I t'ink you will need sorcery."

A sigh and an accusing glance at his rum-less coffee. That had been Elizabeth's idea. Women _were_ bad luck. "So, ye're comin'. Where to are we goin'?"

"I don' know."

"Ye don't know?"

"I will."

Will had jumped into the fray then. "How can you tell us we'll get him back, when you don't know what to do?"

"What to do is not a t'ing at all. You ask where we go, and I tell you, we go where Jack goes."

"Where's that, then?"

"Can we know before he arrives?"

"He's dead!" Gibbs had spluttered.

"But you, a sailor, mus' know dere is no arrival widout the journey. You cannot imagine it be different for the dead?"

"He's jus' goin' to some…afterlife."

"World's End, you said," Will put in, in his shrewdest voice. "Where's that?"

"World's End is at life's end. Everywhere."

"So we don't have to go anywhere at all!" Ragetti had exclaimed, very pleased with himself.

"Oh, no, we's got t' put in at the right port. And the land o' the dead is like the land o' the living. Many ports."

Gibbs had opened his mouth, but he didn't get to make his next argument.

"How long?" Elizabeth had peered at the witch with narrow eyes and narrow pressed-together lips. It was the way she'd been squinting at everyone since she'd climbed out of her blankets that morning.

"One week from the day he died."

"That seems rather arbitrary."

"It is the way of spirits."

And that, unfortunately, had settled that, for who among them could challenge Tia Dalma on the ways of spirits? They'd moved on to discussing what best to do as they waited for their heading. The answer – Tia's answer, of course, had been to get on with commandeering the ship.

"Don't even know if we'll need a ship not, knowin' where we're bound," Gibbs had muttered. "Could be a mule train to bloody Acapulco we'll be needin'!"

"Then we'll _sail _to Vera Cruz and their bloody mules," Barbossa'd growled. The man liked any excuse to growl, and that day he'd seemed to decide backing up the witch was a grand excuse.

"Fine, fine. We'll get ye a ship."

"But not just any ship."

"Well, a ship suited t' the voyage would be best, but we don' _know_…"

"No. A _fortunate _ship would be best."

"A fortu…! Bloody hell, woman!"

"For good luck, Mistah Gibbs."

"An' how'll we know a fortunate ship when she passes?"

"I will tell you."

They'd won a single point the whole day, and it hadn't been when they'd demanded to know how Barbossa could possibly be there, or why they should trust him to help rescue Jack, or why Tia Dalma was willing to leave her queen's domain on the river to travel – somewhere, possibly into hell itself. It had been when Gibbs had pointed out that they didn't have the numbers to handle a real ship, and Tia had no more than shrugged.

"We can have all we need from the village here."

"No."

"An' why not?"

"Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, but we'll not be outnumbered on our own ship by men what we know's got powerful allegiance t' you an' we don't know what loyalty t' _him_."

"So den ya _don't_ trust me. Mistah Gibbs, I'm grieved."

Elizabeth had broken in then with one of her flinty interjections. "I'm afraid you sacrificed the better part of our trust when you produced certain _allies_."

"You'll need more dan you got to take a ship."

They'd agreed on equal numbers and no more. It was how they'd come to have those seven rather spooky chaps who spoke to no one but each other in the party. There'd been much more talk. Much more shouting than he cared to remember. Everyone had taken his turn to say what the man before him had already said only louder and with more profanity, and nothing more got done.

When it had finally all simmered down, they'd had nothing to do for three days but sit and stew together in the swamp. Tia Dalma had sent a pair of her followers to the mouth of the river with a spyglass to keep watch over the trade route to the Windward Passage that swept past her patch of coast. Several times one of the men came running back through the jungle to describe a passing ship, and each time the witch declared the craft unsuitable.

Gibbs had drunk and pored over the surprising number of nautical charts Tia turned up for him, startling out of his perusal and crossing himself every time one of the islanders stole through the room softly enough to suggest a spirit passing. Barbossa'd made an ostentatious display of unconcern, with his feet always on the table as he slice bits of fruit to share with Jack the monkey. Pintel and Ragetti had played guess what's in the jars, while Elizabeth sat about scowling as though hope disagreed with her and she planned to personally throttle it until it looked a bit more like certainty.Will had hovered around her, all anxiety and concern, and the way his hands slowed and paused and pulled away before touching her made it look a bit as if he were channeling Jack's twitchiness. Except that Jack had always gone ahead with the touching.

The single useful thing to come out of those days was that they'd stopped outright jumping at Barbossa's presence. Scowling and glowering were still on full force, though.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Elizabeth watched Gibbs turn and take his leave of the captain and Tia Dalma. Even from here she could see him deflating around a prodigious sigh. She waited, but no order came to change their tack by so much as trimming a stays'l. They'd be holding their course then. Predictable.

Barbossa rocked on his heels and swept out an arm, grinning at his companion. The man was entirely too delighted. There was reason to be pleased, of course. They'd gotten a ship that was much more than she'd expected Tia's 'fortune' to bring them. The moment they had the vessel under their sure control, she'd set off to look her over. She was a soundly built, unpretentious brigantine, the kind of ship that would go where they needed and not attract undue attention while there. The massive merchant's holds were a bit excessive, really, but between that deep draft and her gaff-rigged main, _Burgundy _would sail closer to the wind than any ship Elizabeth had yet been aboard. Besides, in the open ocean and not knowing where they were bound – hell, maybe even around the Horn – they'd not likely regret the extra stability.

And the ship was shockingly well armed. In these waters, the French navy was practically a fantasy. Apparently, King Louis's reasoning held that the bouconiers sailing out of Tortuga could be relied upon, more or less, to keep the English and Spanish in check and could be trusted, somewhat, to leave their own country's ships in peace. And the merchants had fallen back on the shaky strategy of trying to look as much like pirates themselves as they could manage. There were more guns than Gibbs was likely to take on hands to man, not that any opposition they met would need to know their crew situation.

Elizabeth was rather pleased herself, really. If she'd thought it was for the ship – and she hadn't hated him – she might not have grudged Barbossa his good humor. But she knew better. It was impossible to follow someone really stealthily around a ship, but she'd made sure her inspection crossed paths with his and Tia's a couple of times. So she knew he was chortling and muttering merrily to that damned monkey of his over the _wine_. It seemed _The Burgundy_ had been named for the province that produced her cargo, and the holds of the vessel were positively stuffed with casks and casks and barrels of wine. Not a bad thing, Elizabeth had reasoned. Sell it off to the first handy fence, the empty space would hold what provisions they'd take on and the price it fetched could be used to hire an actual crew to which the term able-bodied might actually apply. But down in the cargo hold, conscientiously not following the man, she'd heard him chuckle, "Oh, this'll make for a pleasant journey, a' right."

Eyes on the helm, Elizabeth sneered and imagined she could do something really nasty just by looking at him. Vanish his liver, maybe. Evil, _pretentious_ pirate. Putting on airs like he was lord of some bloody manor. _Wine_. Stood the heat half as well, and a fraction of the drunk you got from rum for the same space…_oh, God. Damn you, Jack Sparrow – or, er, rather confound you. You were right about me, but _not this._ I don't care if you do always seem to know what I'm thinking, you are _not_ permitted to do my thinking for me. _

She was a governor's daughter; she liked fine wine. Knew it better than any foul monster of a pirate captain, too. Still, she wished she could have figured a way to get Gibbs to throw it all overboard, just to spite that bastard.

God, she was being petty. If she was going to fume at Barbossa, she ought to think about _that, _how he'd seemed to consider leaving Gibbs to drown the prisoners as some small compensation for their easy, dull, nigh bloodless capture of the ship. So sorry, you swine, just now we really can't afford any thrillingly gruesome battles for your pleasure. It had been a sneak attack and uncannily successful. A good sign for them – apparently there was something to Tia's mysticism after all.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

The lookout had come running out of the jungle bringing news of the fourth ship in three days. Tia had heard his report, closed her eyes, slanting her head as if to catch some faint sound, and hummed. Then she'd smiled – or smiled more, as the woman never seemed to stop.

They'd all waited for dark on the coast that night, and before the rising of the moon, they'd been beckoned aboard the tiny fishing skiffs Tia's villagers used and rowed out to intercept their quarry. Elizabeth had glanced at Will, sharing her boat, but he hadn't met her eyes – he'd been staring at that knife he'd gotten on _The Dutchman,_ turning it round and round in his hand. Will had been making finer knives since he was fifteen – when there was time she would ask him why that one was so important.

They'd come up astern of the ship, and the rough wake had nearly been more than their little boats could withstand, so they'd thrown their lines and taken hold quick as they could. The oarsmen had turned and sped back to land, leaving them dangling off the side of an enemy ship with one chance at victory and none at escape. Then it'd been hand over hand up the ropes, and once they'd slithered over the gunwales everything had been easy.

For all the ship's fearsome armaments, her crew had been simple tradesmen. Not a clue what to do when the enemy was actually on their ship. Their watch was sparse, and they'd been sloppy enough not to spot the boarding party in the first place. Pintel and Barbossa had run two men through, clapping hands over their mouths to muffle the screams. Will, thankfully, had been too occupied to notice, as he clunked another man over the head with the butt of his pistol. Or had he really not noticed? She doubted he could simply ignore it if he'd seen, but she was not thinking about it rather hard herself. It had been impossible to see what the extraordinarily tall islander with the ring through his nose had done to the fourth watchman, but the man had gone down silently. They'd taken the main deck without any alarm sounded.

Then down to the crew deck, where the rest of the Frenchmen had swung in their hammocks. Weapons all neatly stowed for the night – no pistols tucked about their person, blades out of reach. Simple sailors. They'd ranged themselves between the hammocks, fourteen pirates against nearly fifty merchant seamen, but the merchants were sleeping and each pirate had two hands and two pistols. They'd been able to cover more than half of them with barrels against their throats before shouting the order to wake. The men had been too groggy and terrified to resist, and when, as they marched them to the hatch ladders, one had tried to dive for a weapon, well. Marty might not be much with a sword, but he was a crack shot. That had kept the rest of them quiet until they'd gotten above decks. A few more had tried to fight, or bolt, or had simply panicked then, but whatever they'd been doing, they'd done it badly, and they'd ended up unarmed, pressed against the rail at the unfriendly end of a gun or blade.

Barbossa had killed the captain, of course, while they'd been below, had probably made a big gloating production of it. Still, a ship captured with only four men dead, none of them theirs – she was glad it had not gone worse. And best, now it was done.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

"I don't think it is The _Burgundy. _I think it's Le _Burgundy_, seein' as 'ow she's a French ship."

"But she ain't a French ship now 'at we've got her, is she? She's a pirate ship."

"But pirates c'n speak any language they wants, like."

"An' English pirates like what we are wants to speak English! 'Cause we can."

"Still ye can't change a ship's name. 'S bad luck."

"'S not changin', it's bloody translatin'!"

"Whad'ya think 'trans-' _means…_"

Elizabeth shook her head and let her lips quirk the tiniest bit. It was a pity they'd wandered out of earshot. Pintel and Ragetti may have kidnapped her and threatened her life once upon a time, but there was none could surpass them for diverting mindless drivel on all the high seas. The half-silence of wind, water, and ship wasn't bad either, though, and the land breeze off Hispaniola stirred the sticky Caribbean night without chilling it. The stern deck was a rather perfect place to be just then, as peaceful as if it hadn't hosted a single battle that night. Elizabeth unclasped her arms from around her knees and rolled her shoulders. Closed her eyes, leaned back on her hands, and turned her face to the wind. The fall of footsteps mingled with the night sounds, then Will dropped down beside her.

"Fine night. You'd never know…" His words trailed off, and he stared at the water.

She opened her eyes, and there was another slight, tired quirk of her lips. "Yes. And no."

"You seem…better."

"Did you hear Pintel and Ragetti on your way up here?"

"Apparently, you can call a ship whatever you like, but it's not really renamed unless you paint it."

"An argument of substance."

"That's not quite what I meant."

"I'm fi-…Well. It feels like I can breathe again."

Will nodded solemnly as if he'd hoped for a more reassuring reply and scooted to sit behind her. He touched her shoulder lightly, and she brushed her hair aside. He began to knead her neck and shoulders, and there was something to be said for smith's strength.

"Mmm, thank you. It's just…we've done as much as we can, for now. We're not even properly begun, since we still don't know _what_ we're beginning. But we have a ship now, and we're on the water. We're ready – as soon as Tia tells us where, we're ready to come about any which way."

"Save upwind."

"We can beat upwind."

"Elizabeth…we'll get him back."

"_Yes._" The word was steel, and it lashed out with a cutting edge. Will flinched, his hands tightening on Elizabeth's shoulders. She hissed sharply.

"Elizabeth, I'm sorry!" He jerked his hands away from her to rub them nervously on his thighs.

"I…I think you fixed something in this shoulder actually." She stretched her sword arm experimentally and gave him a reassuring nod.

Will's hands knotted themselves together in his lap. Elizabeth shook her head and shifted back to sit beside him. Shoulder to shoulder they stared at the water.

"So it seems Mr. Gibbs has set us a course," she softly broke the silence.

"Temporarily. Crew and provisions – where could we be headed?"

"Running west along this coast? Where indeed?" Her head tilted at a thinking angle. "I suppose even if it is the first place anyone would look, we'll be least conspicuous in Tortuga. And in this ship we'll look like just a few more boucaniers."

"You and your French."

"Tia Dalma's people speak it," she replied. "You noticed how none of them offered to translate tonight?"

Will blinked at that, then simply groaned. She leaned against him lightly, and he returned the weight. When he glanced down at her, this time it was the moonlight glinting in her eyes.

**A/N: **So there it is, Chapter One. If anyone would like to tell me what they thought, I'd find reviews absolutely delightful. In particular it'd be great if someone could mention whether I'm writing the accents too thick to be readable, but all feed back, happy or otherwise, is welcome.

Hope you enjoyed! Fair winds.


	2. Riding

**Disclaimer: **Don't own it, but I'm working on that. To poor effect.

**A/N:** Thanks to my Chapter 1 reviewers, ianli and SimplyNiki1. Comment were much appreciated, guys!

And a cautionary note: This chapter is rated 'R' for animal sacrifice and the summoning of foul-mouthed sex gods.

**Chapter 2: Riding**

The next time Gibbs asked Tia Dalma for a heading, they were making their way out of Tortuga Bay, and she told him to steer for the Atlantic – "dat will mos' likely start us right."

Barbossa's scowl was darker than his first mate's, and Elizabeth, with her eyes fixed on the setting sun but her ears straining toward the helm, heard snippets of "…-ll very well, playin' at mysteries…swamp…run fer provisions, but headin' out…ocean, someone's got t' command this…have t' give a me what I need t'…-n't be stood up for a fool front o'…"

Elizabeth's hands tightened on the rail. Barbossa and Tia united were one problem; the captain and the conjuror at odds were two. She shifted a few feet along the rail to catch the next words more clearly.

"The time we need's gone past now. It don' mean I know where we sail, but it mean we c'n find out. Make for the ocean; we begin tonight."

At least Tia hadn't seen fit to antagonize him. Her voice had been unusually unaffected, and measured against most of her words those has been quite informative. Elizabeth's eyes followed two gulls swooping through the crimson cloudbanks as she pondered. In some ways it was lucky Tia seemed to be truly as clever and far ahead of them all as she claimed. She could keep her own peace, probably.

Heavy footfalls sounded behind her and stopped directly to her right. "Aye, ye'd best look your last while ye can. A matter of days and we'll not be seeing that sight again fer some time."

"What, the sunset?"

"The Caribbean, lass."

"Unless Tia Dalma gives us word that we're to turn around tomorrow." Elizabeth shrugged carelessly, and Barbossa scowled.

"Ye'd best hope she does** – **the sea ain't no more gentle t' fine ladies than common men. Less maybe, and a long ocean passage…"

"Of course I do hope for a short passage insofar as it will allow us to regain our proper captain more quickly."

Barbossa snorted. "_Your_ captain, is he?"

"That should be obvious."

"Oh, it is, lass, it is."

Elizabeth's voice was frost in the warm evening. "Is there a purpose to this interview, Captain?"

"Only sharin' a few friendly observations."

"They're noted as they deserve," she replied, staring quite as firmly as she could across the water.

Barbossa chuckled and left her. The sun carried on setting.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

"Ya all knows it's time we be gettin' on our way now," Tia declared when she had everyone gathered amidships that night. "An since we go where Jack's gone, we got t' find where dat is. Very soon, I's gonna ask 'im."

"Dead men tell no tales," squawked Cotton's parrot. Tia glared at it.

"Dis ain't somet'in' dat'll work for me t' do alone, an' it won' work wid useless men gettin' underfoot. So dis is how it's gonna be. Any dat wan' t' help wid dis t'ing is welcome. An' any dat don' needs t' clear off. You decide now. Captain, I's sorry, but yo' help is mos' especially required."

"Who's Jack?" one of the new Tortuga hands whispered too loudly.

"Our Cap'n before this'n. Good man. Dead now, like the bird said," Pintel replied.

The man that did the asking shuddered as the night wind gusted across the deck, and to a man, the new hands chose to withdraw. A few scampered off casting anxious glances at the water as if trying to judge whether they'd come too far a distance now to jump over the rail and swim for shore. Some disappeared below decks, crossing themselves as they went. A few volunteered to take over the current watch and managed to find duties that gave them a clear line of sight to spy on the strange goings on, on the main deck. And most didn't bother with that pretense, just clustered on the forecastle steps and settled in to watch.

Also to a man, those who'd sailed on _The Pearl_ remained, though Gibbs looked pale, and the parrot seemed disgusted with the whole thing. "A fool's errand in a foul wind!" it screeched, and Cotton shrugged sheepishly and poked the bird, presumably to bolster its faith.

Tia's islanders appeared then, bearing small drums for themselves and what wine casks had been emptied during the sail to Tortuga for the others. They handed off a few of the casks and broke down a couple more, passing out the iron hoops freed from the ends along with heavy spoons from the galley. When everyone had something to beat on, the islanders began teaching the pirates to drum.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

There was grumbling among the Tortuga men that night. Elizabeth heard it on every side as she made her way aft to her cabin.

"Ship's bound straight t' hell, ye mark my words."

"No argument from me, mate," sounded from the pair at the rail.

"…and deliver us from evil. For Thine are the kingdom, the power, and the glory…" from the lone fellow perched atop the capstan.

And the knot of grimy men clogging the companionway were in the middle of a grand complaint as she jostled her way through them.

"Dodgy business, if y'ask me."

"Well, ye're a gen'rous chap! I calls it plain insane."

"Never any good comes o' gettin' mixed up wit' the supernat'ral. Probably there's a curse. There always ends up bein' a curse. _An' _there's a witch aboard. Didn't nobody tell us about _her_ when we was signin' up."

"Didn't nobody tell us nothin'. I thought we'd be sailin' after some lovely gold and jewels."

"They didn't say we would."

"Well, I didn't bloody well think I needed t' ask! What chap in 'is right mind thinks t' ask, 'So which're we after this trip – plunder 'r dead men?'"

All of it throbbed along with the drums still echoing in her head in a perfectly sickening way. And that was only what she overheard. The men from the companionway trailed along after her, and what they said _to_ her was another matter again.

"Not in there, sweeting." The broad-shouldered one with the bristly black beard leaned against her cabin door. "Come below, welcome a few lonely hands aboard."

She regarded him levelly. "Thank you, no."

"Don't be cold, lass. Take pity on poor sailor, settin' out on queer voyage and pinin' fer fair ports left behind." This was the one who was missing most of one ear.

"_You're_ warm enough from the last bed you left in Tortuga. Good night."

"Aww, now we promise t' be good company. Real friendly," and the one who was far too young for this sort of thing splayed a hand over her hip and made to drag her back against him. She whirled on him, and Big-and-Bristly grabbed her wrist. Her knife was in her other hand though, and she threw her shoulders back against the wall to have none of them behind her.

"Now _that _ain't friendly a'tall." Bristly reached to take the knife, the blade twisted toward his wrist, and the youngin' let out a yelp, though it wasn't his blood that spilled. Bristly cursed and released Elizabeth's wrist to clutch his own.

"And _your_ behavior is hardly polite. _Good night._" She wrenched open the cabin door behind her, slipped through, and slammed it again. In the tiny cupboard's worth of space, she glared at the bar inside the door, resenting the fact that she had to be glad it was there.

Will came to her a few minutes later. What had delayed him on deck was a mystery – no, not a mystery, it was nothing. They'd merely stepped apart, seeing no reason not to. "Elizabeth, why is the door barred?"

"To exclude unwanted company."

"Ohh…"

The door flew open. "Oh, Will, not you – I'm sorry!" She looked a bit wild, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung. Lightly, he stroked her back.

"Elizabeth, are you all right?"

"I…yes. Yes, I'm fine. Just very, very tired."

"It has been quite a day. I'll…leave you to your rest, then?"

She jerked back a bit, surprised. "You needn't…"

Will smiled a regretful half-smile. "You look fit to topple, Elizabeth. Good night." He brushed a kiss across her cheek and vanished into his own cabin just across the passage.

Elizabeth closed her door. And barred it.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

Barbossa was passing when she stepped out of her cabin the next morning. "An' how're ye findin' the hospitality of me crew, Miss Swann?"

"I find it leaves something to be desired."

"I expect they'd make nigh the same complaint about you, missy – that ye've left 'em desirin' something.'"

"I don't need you to interpret their depravity to me."

"No, since I put ye off on that island with Jack, I'm sure ye don't."

"You speak with a great deal of assurance about things you know absolutely nothing of."

"Ah, come now. Ol' Jack must've made a rare fine job of it – it's stark 'n' clear t' all that'll look how keen ye are to save the man what ruined yer wedding."

"Cutler Beckett ruined my wedding, _Captain_."

"Ye'll be wantin' to watch that tone, _sailor_."

"Tone?" she inquired without the slightest confusion.

"Aye, an' ye'll also be wantin' t' get yerself forward and shimmy up that mast there." He nodded toward the bow and strode off shouting, "Set stuns'ls, lads, and let's catch the backs o' these trades!"

Fifteen minutes later, as she and Will wrestled the canvas into place on the top stuns'l boom he called up, more than loud enough for the entire crew to hear, "Swann, ye daft chit, what kind o' shoddy work is that?"

"Bastard," she growled. Will's eyes went round. "He _is,_" she insisted.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

If First Mate Gibbs knew one thing, it was that in between the bits when you stared death in face, life on a ship – any ship, even the strangest – was nothing if not routine. The next few days on _The Burgundy_ fell into a pattern as is of their own accord. There was the cycle of assigned watches,fours hours on and eight off – four hours of hard labor by day or deathly dull _watching _at night, eight hours of exhausted sleep or struggling to fill the hours with boozing and betting and tale-telling. Will and Miss Elizabeth shared watches, so it was also four hours of the captain railing and cursing and eight hours of blessed peace.

If there was one thing Gibbs didn't know, it was what those two had done to earn Barbossa's particular grudge against them when the rest of Jack's crew had escaped it, but he winced for them whenever he heard the captain shout. Not that they did anything to make it easier on themselves. When Barbossa ranted at Elizabeth for her feminine weakness and her empty woman's head, she wrapped herself up in a prim, grimsilence and glared. When he corrected the simple gaffs any new sailor would make, she would nod sullenly and ease the line or retie the knot. Bad practice not to acknowledge an order aloud – served everyone poorly come combat or foul weather when a captain couldn't be looking to see all was done as he said.Gibbs didn't remember the lass being so careless or unlearned those few days she'd sailed with _The Pearl_, and earlier when they'd both been _against_ _The Pearl _in _The Interceptor_, she'd even seemed a bit of a naval tactician. He reckoned Barbossa made her nervous. He might do anyone.

And her laddy love – he took to Barbossa's taunting with as much restraint as he did anything. The first time the man had sneered that Will for disgraced his father's pirate blood, speculating – odd accusation, Gibbs'd thought, for hadn't the Aztec gold proved some point about it? – as to his mother's fidelity, it'd taken himself and that new hand Flanagan to hold the boy back. He'd been shouting and threatening like he feared the words were true, or as if a blacksmith-pirate had a lord's honor to defend. Ungodly scene – Barbossa'd threatened the brig.

There was drumming practice in the evenings for _The Pearl's_ crew. The rhythms built themselves up, getting more and more complicated by the day. There got to be more of them, too – softer, louder, faster, and slower ones – and the witch said they'd need them all. _She _didn't teach, left that to her underlings, but she swept about from group to group, looking fearsome and feral with her black lips split over black teeth warning that come the ceremony the least, littlest mistake could get their souls sucked out "right t'rough the sockets o' yo' eyes." Then afterwards, as they were packing their makeshift instruments away, she would slump against the mast and chuckle, tossing winks at a man or two. The first mate wasn't sure how heathens and devil-worshipers raised their young, but he was fair sure that one hadn't been slapped enough as a child.

And always, always there was that bit of tension with the new crewmen to worry over. They didn't understand much of anything, those lads. Not why they were wasting time with drumming instead of steering straight into a trade route and hunting for swag. And certainly not why there should be two women on board and no advantage to them. Well, Tia Dalma wasn't of so much interest being spookier than a six-legged flying cat, but Miss Elizabeth – she might be more scrap than morsel, that one, but she was a comely scrap, and he could see how men that didn't remember her at the age of 12 might get ideas. And some that did, if you counted the absent former commodore.

He and the original crew banded together to guard her virtue so much as they could – which seemed to frankly surprise Elizabeth – but that was giving the impression there was some exclusive club formed around privileges with the ship's lady. He'd gotten more than one inquiry as to how to join. Young Will could have fixed things if he'd gone about right, but so far he'd no more than confused the new men. Oh, he was quick to leap to her defense, all right, but it always sounded like he was calling the man out to duel for fair lady's honor. These salts couldn't read the books such tales came out of, and some had never learned more than a bawdy ballad from their own mothers. They would have understood him roaring, "The wench is _mine!_" and dragging her below for a spot of territorial staking perfectly, but if such a thing had even occurred to Will he must have realized _his_ lady would have either laughed him down or slapped him. It all ended up with Miss Elizabeth pulling her sword quite often each day, as a point of steel was harder to argue than a point made of words.

Gibbs also knew that 'routine' didn't mean any less of a mess.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

"I been readin' the Bible…"

"No, he 'asn't."

"I been lookin' at a Bible, an' thinkin' 'bout what the preacher used t' say when I was a lad…"

Tia Dalma was hanging a straw bag filled with peanuts and a bottle of rum on the foremast. She looped the bag's straps once more over a lantern hook and turned to her vistors. "Yes?"

"Well, the Bible only ever says there's one heaven an' one hell, so ain't we just wastin' a lot o' time with this?"

She caught up a bowl of some paste and crouched to the deck. "Yo' Bible say too dat Jesus called Lazarus out o' the tomb – 'Hello, dere. Get up now!' – but we's not doin' t'ings dat way."

"But we know where he's going, right?"

"A man like Jack? Lived his whole life touchin' the fantastic? T'ink he's gon' go where the Church o' England tell 'im when he die?"

"Well, he wouldn't seem t' fit…"

"Ya see."

"Look, all I'm sayin' is that the Bible don't seem t' think too much o' this magic and witches and spirits business, an' the Bible's The Word, like, so how's this ever gonna work?"

"Is dat not your cross, dere?" Tia gestured up at the mast above them, lifting its yards into the sky like the rungs of a mighty ladder. "An' on the cross did yo' Christ not pass over from the living to the dead? An' at the crossroads, I tell ya, Legba open the paths between the worl's. An' is not yo' cross here," she waved her hand over the intricate picture she painting on the deck with the paste – tar and cornmeal – "crownin' the tomb, markin' out where the dead come t' rest?"

"I don't like talking to her," Ragetti sulked as they wandered off again. "'S no fun when they knows everything."

Pintel harrumphed smugly. "Told ya it wouldn't do no good."

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

It was full dark, or as dark as the night could get between the white glare of the moon and the shimmer of her twin in the water when Tia called them all together for something that would not be practice. A wide ring of lanterns enclosed the foredeck, casting up a wall of light to shut out the world – a wall the salt wind and the soughing rigging utterly ignored, their wet breath and creaking moans ghosting through the circle. Just inside the ring the neat little hand drums sat with the tubby casks, and the foremast rose towering at the center of everything, its shaft swathed in red and white fabric, purple and black hanging from the lowest yard.

Tia stepped away from the foot of the mast with a rattle in her hand, and what light there was bent toward her, moon silver and lantern gold. "You dere, and jus' wait," she murmured to Barbossa. He took up grudging position to side of the mast. She waved the sailors toward their instruments. "Now you play – softly, like you learned."

The Domingans began immediately, tapping a gentle counterpoint to the waves that slapped the ship's sides. Tentatively, the pirates joined them, and to a soft, many-voiced pulse, Tia shuffled round to face the mast and began to hum. The humming slowly articulated into words, an endless litany of names that thickened in the air and left her listeners unsure whether they were feeling bored or entranced.

At last Bandele, one of the two she called hounsi, took the lead, skittered his fingers in a new rhythm, and cued the accompaniment that had been so carefully taught. Now the drum song was quiet still but shot through with an eager tension. Tia's rattle draped in its jacket of beads rustled by her side. Her arms shot up above her head. "Papa Legba! St. Pierre!" she called out. "Attibon Legba, entendez-moi!" Her arms dropped, and her foot stomped. Then she was dancing, churning and stamping round the foremast and singing out a chant in a language that troubled Elizabeth's mind by hinting just strongly enough at French to make it infuriating that it was not. The islanders, of course weren't at all mystified; they sang back 'ouvri baye' and 'nan baye-a' every time Tia drew breath.

Suddenly a crackle of clear light limned the mast from crow's nest to fiferail, St. Elmo's fire wilder and hungrier than any storm ever made. It was gone so quickly nothing but the glowing afterimages behind their eyelids assured the assembly it had been at all, and yet the entire feeling of the night had changed. It was as if the unbounded waters stretching out in every direction to the horizon's ring had, without their realizing it, been horribly narrow, and it was only now the space widened, doors opened, that they…that someone…that _things_ could move. Tia kept dancing as she saluted the mast and beckoned Hounsi Santos forward to place a bowl filled with grilled chicken and yams at its foot.

Bandele thumped his drum then, and the beat changed again to something frenzied and joyous. Even as they scrabble to keep up, the pirates felt the rhythm stealing into them through skin to sinew, bone, and deepest core. One by one the islanders left their drums and joined the dance. It was impossible not to watch – the way the dancers gestured and the way their bodies met and parted – it wasn't meant to leave anyone guessing. Will blushed, and Elizabeth's eyes widened in horrified fascination. And the sailors – they'd paid good money for far less adventurous, thought statistically more female, shows in many a Tortuga brothel. And the beat carried all. Left to play alone, _The Pearl's _crew drummed as if inspired; it was easier to drum than to stop.

A stranger thing happened then than any of them had ever expected to see – Barbossa leapt into the dance, stepping larger and higher and more lithely than any of Tia's young acolytes. His limbs moved with a grace that was the opposite of boneless, as if flesh were naught but bulk and hindrance; the lantern light touched him just so and showed him pale as if the curse were upon him again; and where his shadow fell it was thinner than science allowed. He turned and surged as he stripped his coat and the baldric with its heavy accoutrements from his shoulders, and he laughed a laugh that was full and smoke-rough in place of his usual sly and gravelly one.

"Don' you let me go dry, chile!" he shouted in an accent Hector Barbossa would have been disinclined to acquiesce to allow through his lips were he in his right mind or, indeed, in his mind at all. An imperious gesture to one of the dancers sent the man rushing to the edge of the circle and returning with a bottle of the peppered rum Tia had made clear was not for mortals. Barbossa snatched it from his hand and poured half the liquid down his throat. He splashed more on his head as he danced, rubbing the fiery stuff over his face with glee, and he held the bottle between his legs jerking it obscenely so the dregs spurted onto Tia's skirts. Laughing again, he threw the bottle away and grabbed Tia instead, lifting her to straddle his hips and rocking her there as he completed a few more turns around the mast.

A wave of his hand and somehow the pirates knew it was time to soften the drums again to no more than a heart's pulse. Barbossa set Tia down and stepped back with a leer. "Tia Dalma. Who died an' left yo' cunny so lonely you got t' call on the Baron?"

"Ya know who I wan' t' speak wid, Baron."

"Mah power don' stretch where he be, cherie," chuckled the dubious nobleman who was not Barbossa. "Bettah t' fuhget 'im. You nevah was one t' set much store by one man, an' while you's livin' ya wan' to sport wid the livin'. Deir bits is warmer."

"Ya got mo' power dan you's lettin' on. Ya know who's keepin' 'im. You's got power dat dey'll hear ya speak."

"He ain't in mah realm, an' 'is soul ain't formed in the right parts. You know bettah dan dis."

"I do know, but I know too dat it _can_ be done. Ain't I right?"

"You ain't got no more humble, I see."

"Don' you be too humble. You can do dis t'ing."

"But why should I? What you pay me t' scratch such an unnatural itch fo' ya?"

"Don't we feed ya well? Give ya a hoss ya know?"

The Baron glanced down at Barbossa's body and back to Tia, unimpressed. "Give me back a hoss you stole, is mo' like. An' I'm out o' rum." Santos hurried forward with another bottle. "I'll be wantin' a sacrifice. An' no stringy chickens, all feathers, no stuffin.'"

"'Course not. We's got a goat."

The Baron cocked his head, interest piqued. "Stud goat? Good horny goat?"

"See fo' yo'self."

Santos came forward again, now leading the ship's prize bit of livestock. The Baron considered the animal for a moment, then ambled off around the circle swigging thoughtfully from his bottle of fire. Drawing level with Ragetti rubbing his wooden eye, he murmured almost absently, "You'll get mo' pleasure stickin' dat in another hole," and stopping in front of Will and Elizabeth he seemed to be swimming up out of a reverie. He regarded the two keenly, though, and chuckled. "Word o' advice, boy," he said, leaning toward Will's ear, "dat lady don' wan' no eunuchs." He turned, leaving Will spluttering, and faced Tia.

"Ought t' toss ya over dat rail as uppity as ya are an' laugh t' see the water not take ya. But Legba t'ink you's funny, so he'll open the gate fo' ya. An' ya meet my price, so I'll call yo' soul."

At that, with so little ceremony it left the pirates gaping, Santos held the goat and Bandele a bowl to catch the blood, and Tia drew a knife from her belt and opened its throat. When the creature had bled itself to stillness, the Baron approached and lifted the bowl. He swished the contents about and sniffed them as if judging a fine wine, swallowed a mouthful, and nodded. "Very good," he pronounced to Tia, and withdrew to lean against the mast.

A few moments of empty silence passed. "It's done like ya asked," huffed the Baron impatiently.

"Jack Sparrow?" Tia eyed her two hounsis assessingly, but they merely dragged the goat's carcass out of the way. "Jack!" Her eyes traveled moved over the small crowd strung along the edge of the circle. "Jack Sparrow don' ya be a damn fool, an' show yo'self if ya know what's good for ya!"

"Tia, darling! I knew you'd miss me."

The voice was very nearly Jack's, just a shade too high, and it came from the last place it should have.

"Jack Sparrow, what trouble you causin' now?"

"That's 'Captain' to you, Mambo. And to everyone else. Evenin' gents. Mr. Turner. What's this, Turner? No Elizabeth? You haven't lost her, have you?"

"You's a devil, Jack." Tia waved a hand at him meaningfully, and he looked down at himself. Elizabeth's body had made its way into the center of the circle, hips forward, eyes heavy, and hands floating in no mere imitation of the captain.

"Well, that's interesting. Sorry, love."

"What hoss you's ridin's o' no consequence now. We's other mattahs t' discuss."

"I suppose." Elizabeth's eyebrows climbed, and she smirked Jack's smirk. "Though I always thought a bit o' ridin' between a man an' a woman was o' very delightful consequence."

"Elizabeth!" Will exclaimed and made to step into the circle.

"She ain't here, Will Turner! Her ti'bonanj done flown."

"There ye see, mate, 's just a bit o' friendly possession. She won't remember a thing, ask Tia…actually, Tia, will she remember it? Because if so, I think it'd be awfully nice if you assisted me in making this remarkable manifestation as maximally memorable as may be for Miss Swann, savvy?"

Will maintained some restraint only by telling himself that under ordinary circumstances Elizabeth was as physically incapable of leering as Barbossa was of dancing. "I demand that you respect Elizabeth!" he choked out furiously. The grip Gibbs had on his arm was a very necessary anchor at that point.

"Oh, go stab a heart," Jack grumped. "Tia?"

"No, she won' remember. An' neither will you, dead man."

"What? 'S awfully sad t' get a holiday from damnation and not remember it."

"You'll remember so long as you's dead, but no more once we fetch ya back t' life. Dat's what we got t' speak 'bout, Jack. We's comin' t' get ya."

His eyes narrowed warily, and that expression was so at home on Elizabeth's face, the crew shivered. "What'll that cost me? I'm all out o' monkeys."

"Monkeys ain't involved. We need t' know where we call ya from. Where you at, Jack?"

Jack glared at her piercingly, but then sighed. "Oh, you know, awful fiery pit of lamentation," he replied, his voice turning fiercely nonchalant. "A bit common, really."

"But which one?"

"There's more'n one?"

"O' course, dere's more dan one!" Tia snapped. "Which you in?"

"I hardly see I'm supposed to tell one inferno from the next when you only just told me that there is a next."

"Ya could describe it."

"Eh, lots o' levels, sundry graphic and inquisitorial torments, chastisements, reprovals… Didn't see any 'abandon hope all ye…' over the gate goin' in though."

"How'd ya go in?"

"Oh! Rather unpleasant, that bit. Two huge beasties, heads like an ox an' a horse, caught me floating around – I'm not sure where really – an' hauled me in."

"In where?"

"Courtroom type place. I wasn't in their books. That shook them up considerable."

"Weren't ya now?"

"Shocking, I know. They should have heard of me."

"No, dat's good. Who's books were dey? Who'd ya meet?"

"Books belonged to the king."

"His name?"

Jack mumbled something entirely unintelligible, and Tia glared disapprovingly.

"If ya never managed a sober word in ya life, Jack Sparrow, I know you ya can in death. Ya ain't had time yet t' rob hell's cellars."

The injured pout was entirely Jack's, but it looked quite fetching on Elizabeth's face. Will felt a sudden profound need for a wash. "I said, Yen Lo-Wang."

"Yama," Tia breathed and nodded. "All righ', den, Jack, listen here. When we come, dere will be words t' speak, t' open the ways. Ya need t' find dose words. Dey won' mind ya knowin' 'cause nothin' in no hell open from the inside. But we's goin' t' speak wid you once more before we come, an' den you's got t' have dose words fo' me. Savvy?" she tacked on ironically.

He rolled his eyes. "O' course, savvy."

"T'ank you, Jack. We'll be dere t' collect ya, soon's we can.

"What? That's it? You must have loads more questions or instructions or something! Really, I don't need to be back in hell for…until you come t' fetch me, practically. Just t' get those words."

"Miss 'Lisbeth need her body back, Jack."

"Hardly. She owes me anyway. And she doesn't mind having me in her body, do you, love? No, Jack, I don't mind at all. You go ahead and stay. There! You see!"

"That was the most grotesque thing I've ever seen," Will gagged.

"Cap'n, ye make a right unnatural woman."

Jack froze and turned such a haughty gaze down his nose that the expression almost looked like one of Elizabeth's own. "Indeed, Mr. Pintel."

"Jack, ya ain't foolin' no one."

"_Fine_," he grumbled. "But hurry up and save me."

"Let her go, Jack."

"Yes, all right then. Adieu, gentlemen, my lady. This is the day you will always remember as the day you sent Captain Jack Sparrow back to hell."

Quite suddenly Elizabeth collapsed. Will shrugged off Gibb's arm and ran forward, the older man only a step behind. The pirates clustered around Elizabeth, and the Domingans dove for their drums. Will cradled Elizabeth and shook her gently as a slow-and-getting-slower beat played. Tia turned to the mast calling a final salute. Elizabeth's eyes creaked open. She frowned.

"Why am I on the deck?" Then with more alarm she demanded, "What happened? Is the ritual ruined?"

"The ritual's over," Tia said above her.

"Over?"

"Ya won' remember, but ya were mos' helpful."

Elizabeth struggled to her feet, ignoring Will's plea of 'shh, lie still!' "Where are we going then?"

A groan from beneath the mast interrupted them, and Tia hurried off to see to Barbossa. "Where are we going?" Elizabeth called after her.

The other woman gave quick orders to two of her people to carry the semi-conscious captain off to his cabin. "China!" she shouted back.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

An hour later, Will and Elizabeth had returned to their comfortable spot on the poop deck. Elizabeth sat with a blanket around her shoulders and a slowly cooling mug of weak grog in her hand, as Will feared she might at any moment regress to Barbossa's level of recovery from the ritual.

"It was…very disturbing – watching you out of your own control, watching you act just like Jack," Will concluded, when he'd told her all he could of the part of the night she didn't remember.

"From what you said Tia said, it was Jack acting just like Jack in my body." Oh, hell, she was blaming Jack for that. Some lingering aftereffect. It wouldn't have come out like that if she were really, fully herself. Will didn't smirk, though. Of course he didn't.

"I know he's better than he seems, but he made you say terrible things."

"What?"

"You're probably happier not knowing."

"Worse than Barbossa – or whoever that was – said?"

"Well, no, but they were about you."

"He would do that. Wretch. He'll have to pay once he's alive again." He met her wry hint of a smile with a solemn, deliberate gaze.

"Why would Jack's spirit choose you?"

_Peas in a pod, love._ "Maybe because I was the last person off the Pearl, the last person with him before he died."

"Or it was love."

"What!?" She spluttered messily on a sip of her grog.

"Don't worry about sparing me, Elizabeth."

"What do you mean?"

"I know…I know that you love him."

Elizabeth moved her lips in the shape of 'what' again, but only puff of breath emerged.

"It's…all right," he mumbled, the words nearly sinking into wind.

She set her tankard aside and straightened up. "It absolutely is not! Does my fiancé care so little that I – apparently – love a another man?"

"I saw you, Elizabeth. The two of you, on _The Pearl._ When you…kissed him. He deserved that."

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut and clutched his hands as crushingly as she had that first night in Tia's shack. "I dare say he did," she whispered.

"And so it's not that I don't care, Elizabeth – I do, so very much – but…I understand."

God, he was going make her explain, make her tell him something awful. But this was _Will_, and she wondered for a desperate second if another answer were possible. Of course not. A slowly in-drawn breath, and she opened her eyes. "That was 'thank you,' Will. He saved us all."

"I know, and you'd not thank a man with an empty kiss."

"It was Jack! He likes – liked – will like…To kiss him and mean something by it would be cruel. It'd scare him to death."

"He died for us. For you."

_He died _of _me. _"We can keep discussing this, Will. Or you can quit being daft."

"Daft?"

"You missed being my husband by one hour. Do you think that means nothing?" She stretched a hand to his cheek, leaned forward, and kissed him.

"You don't love Jack?"

"Daft," she murmured against his lips.

"You love me?"

"That's what I'm telling you."

"You're not telling me; you're kissing me."

"And what do you think that means?"

"I don't know, you might be thanking me for something."

"_If _you'll cease this ridiculous discussion, I _will _thank you for it."

"Elizabeth?"

"Look at you, Will, you're the best man I've ever known. _Of course, _I love you."

They scrambled up so the deck bit into their knees and they could hold one another better. He rested his forehead against hers and stroked her hair. "I love you too."

"I'm glad. You know you needn't be _quite _so gallant as to go giving me away left and right."

"I would _prefer_ to keep you." His kiss was soft and slow. She parted her lips when he might have pulled back and drew him deeper. His hands drifted up to cup her face, thumbs gently stroking across her cheeks. Her hands ran down his back and tightened around fistfuls of his shirt.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

It was a terrible moment when Elizabeth realized Barbossa was a good captain. It was the very next morning and he'd found his way out of his cabin, much recovered from his recent possession.

"Fine day t' be getting properly underway," he boomed, and Barbossa in good spirits was enough to make anyone look again. "China, lads!" Good luck that. A richer land ye could imagine, full o' silks 'n' spices and every other nation in the world shippin' ther gold there to _buy_ said silks 'n' spices – the more fools them, eh? An' the whores – make a Tortuga wench seem decent, they do. Pintel! You recall that dancing girl in Singapore – the one ol' Jack watched so close he leaned into a lamp and set his beard afire?"

"Heh, I surely do, Cap'n."

"It was a fine trick she could do with her…mmm…an' her…ehhh." There were distinctly unsubtle hand gestures, and Pintel grinned foolishly.

"Oh, aye."

"So let's not delay then; the Orient's a-waitin'!" And the crew, obviously quite cheered by a speech in which the words 'resurrection' and 'witchcraft' had not featured once, leapt to trim the sails for a broader reach and a more southerly course.

Barbossa took the helm himself and caroled out orders all morning. They were smart, competent commands, and he didn't even break to heckle her or Will. "Aye, captain," rebounded back from all quarters. She heard it from Gibbs and glared betrayal at the first mate.

It _was_ true, but temporarily, and there were too few on _The Burgundy _who truly understood that. It wasn't in the nature of common sea dogs to care who captained a vessel. So long as the man knew what he was about, steered them to profits, and didn't make enemies, they'd never see a need for change. The new hands did not hate Barbossa, and worse, she realized, he'd give them no reason to.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

_The_ _Auspico Regis _was beyond doubt the finest ship James Norrington had ever seen. She was a towering three-decker fitted with more firepower than a galleon carried gold, but trim and powerful in all the ways a galleon wasn't. Christened and launched that very year from the yards in Portsmouth, she was a ship of the line to put the rest of the line to shame, and as fondly as Norrington recalled _The_ _Dauntless_, as proud as he'd been of her at the time, this beauty would have daunted her. _Dauntless_ had been the head of an island fleet; _The Regis_ was the flagship of an empire.

It was glorious watching her ­­­­­­­loom nearer as his gig cut across the harbor, the rocky St. Helena hills and the pier of rugged littleJamestown falling away astern. An enormous relief to be once more on the right side of the law, headed from a simple, successful mission back out to an assuredly hospitable sea.

The Jacob's ladder fell over the side of _The Regis, _and he clambered up, his oarsmen following. "Welcome aboard, Admiral."

It was rear admiral, actually; Beckett couldn't have flown utterly in the face of propriety and promoted a disgraced navy man to the absolute head of his fleet even if he'd wanted to. But rank was a tricky thing to former-commodore, former-pirate Norrington these days. So far as sensitive information and acquaintance with the long-term plans of the East India Trading Company went, he was literally oceans ahead of the landbound fleet admiral back in London. But at the same time there were moments – fleeting, occasional – when he wondered what a rank really meant when it wasn't naval rank. It meant his bit of honor back, of course, and this splendid ship and all the ships under her within his command.

"Thank you, Hawkins," he nodded.

"All go well at the fort, sir?"

"The Governor, smart man, was a rather leery. He desired immensely to receive a scientific rationale for the new procedures. The colonel of the garrison, though, was of the useful frame of mind that orders deserve to be followed for their own sake. I believe the Dutch and the pirates both will soon find these waters a great deal less tempting."

"Very good, sir."

"Yes, it is." He smiled faintly back at the volcanic prick of land that represented such a vital supply point for East Indiamen. "Hawkins, I shall be in my cabin preparing Beckett's report. Have the men make ready to sail with the evening tide. Also, send Lieutenant Chesterson to me at the earliest convenience."

"Of course. Any lanterns, sir?"

God, but it was something to have intelligent underlings. "The green, once we're out of sight of land."

Hours later, Admiral Norrington rested behind his desk idly spinning the handsome globe mounted to the near corner. Beckett's report sat neatly penned and neatly sealed in front of him, the correspondence he was entrusting to Chesterson had already been handed off along with precise orders regarding the man's impending assignment, and he'd been out on deck earlier to supervise their departure and set their new course. Now, he simply waited.

Only briefly, as it turned out. His door was shoved inward without any knock sounding, and Davy Jones stumped squidily into his cabin. "What?" the captain demanded, huffing so his every tentacle quivered.

"So good of you to come," the admiral remarked drily.

"Good of you to _command_ it; now what d'ye want?"

"I shall be needing you to carry this to Beckett." He passed the prepared report into Davy's claw. "It states that the new order of things has been communicated to the administration of St. Helena. That means they'll be on the lantern system now as well. You'll need to set your lookout watching in this direction along with the rest. They're a higher priority than Barbados, so answer any summons of equal urgency from this quarter first."

"Lovely, what else?"

"I want your report – have you managed yet to acquire any crewmen that don't resemble horrors of the deep?"

"O' course, new crew's never hard to come by."

"Excellent. See that you keep hands aboard who do indeed have hands in place of fins. They will be essential in receiving dispatches from the various outposts."

"Am I free, as ye might call it, to go?"

"Only a few more matters. I shall require fair winds to the Cape as of…now."

"Giving the Gold Coast a miss, are ye?"

"Myself, yes. You'll be transporting Chesterson there on my behalf."

"What?" Jones's voice cracked like a sodden lash.

"It is desirable for _The Regis's _tour to appear to other nations as a masterful and preternaturally fortunate progress to the Company's holdings in the Orient rather than a confused meander among all the ports of the empire. It would also be ridiculous to set back the implementation of the communications system by such a measure."

"Why this Chesterson? Who's he?"

"I certainly could not go myself. Confirmed sightings of me on opposite sides of the Atlantic on consecutive days? No, what we want is a suspicion of the supernatural without the evidence. Uncertainty is much more debilitating to the opposition and defies counterstrategies. Also Chesterson is an excellent lieutenant."

"He won't blubber, will he?"

"No, I assure you he's most adaptable."

"Anything else?"

"Had Beckett any messages for me when you spoke with him last?"

Norrington knew members of the squid family were said to be able to change color quite spectacularly, and Jones certainly proved it as he darkened and growled, "Only that ye're to carry on, an' expect further orders for the Cape when ye're nearer. Hangin's were up last week. Three pirate vessels taken, with most of the crews alive – at the time. What are my orders _there_?"

This was the eternal question with the captain, but though their reluctant ally might bear his servitude more easily if they allowed him wreak broad and messy destruction rather than carry mail, that would _not_ be the most strategic use of his abilities. Norrington sighed. "As they ever are. If you encounter pirates directly in the line of your other duties or if one of the colonies signals for urgent assistance, you are to attack. Otherwise, report their locations as you discover them, and leave them to our ships above the surface." Jones was curling his tentacles and leaning in ready to argue. "Do collect Chesterson on your way out. He'll be waiting at the taffrail."

Davy straightened up, huffing again. The admiral couldn't see any obvious traces of whale about the former man, but he certainly sputtered and spouted as if he breathed through a blowhole. He spun about and stumped back toward the door. "I swear one day, boy…my locker has space aplenty…" Norrington heard him mutter before he was gone.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

The Tortuga men had watched the ritual, of course, though they hadn't participated. Hovering outside the wall of lantern light, they'd seen more than enough to pique their interest. The first inquiry as to where the captain had learned to dance had gotten young Sam his ear boxed, so now all questions centered on Jack. "Bit odd, isn't he?" seemed to be the favorite. _The Pearl's _crew always agreed quite merrily that "aye, Cap'n Jack, he was a rare sort," and even Barbossa chimed in occasionally with humorous tales of the years before the mutiny.

The captain didn't seem to find any humor, though, in what he'd heard recounted of Tia's ritual. Something about it seemed to powerfully offend him, in fact. The number of times since that he'd found excuse to sneer 'just like Jack' at Elizabeth or imply something improper about her relations with the late captain mounted beyond calculation, until Elizabeth finally snapped, "If you have something to say to Jack, Captain, you'll simply have to wait until we have him back. I'm no more him than you are a god of death." It _was _annoying, but Will didn't understand why Elizabeth was coming to look slightly panicked anytime someone mentioned Jack's name.

That came clear, though, the day Braxton, the huge, bad-tempered and be-whiskered fellow demanded, more bluntly than most dared: "So why're we goin' to such trouble for a half-mad sodomite anyway?"

"He did give his life to save his crew," Elizabeth snapped out.

"A _touchin'_ display o' loyalty, Miss Swann, fer a man what never gave ye more than lies 'n' peril." Barbossa leered at her. "'Less there be somethin' else he gave ye, that we don't know about."

"Oh, I think we know!" the man called O'Roarke hollered, and the men laughed her down as Jack's whore. Gibbs hastened to state that Jack's madness was brilliance and that what sailor was without blame could cast stones about the other thing, but his words lost in the noise. Will tried speak on Elizabeth's behalf, but they laughed at him too, called him cuckold before his wedding, and not even with pity, only derision. He couldn't think about the scene without fury – and a bit of confusion. He supposed the men's suspicion about Jack and their suspicion about Elizabeth were reconciled by fact that since the ritual at least have of them believed Elizabeth was secretly a man. Or perhaps suspicions didn't need reconciling.

The very next evening, Barbossa's cursed monkey swung itself chattering and screeching into the rigging just where Elizabeth was working. The captain wandered over and, inevitably, sneered. "Well, it's lucky me little friend here has a clearer head than yers, Miss Swann. A bowline is completely different from a sheet bend, ye do realize?" She hissed under her breath and retied the knot. "Thinkin' just like Jack, that goin' t' sea's all a bit o' romance, too many dreams t' trouble yer mind with work." Will caught her glaring daggers at the captain's back; he remembered twelve-year-old Elizabeth touring his own young self around the ship that had saved him, proudly naming every line, spar, and bit of brass or iron, teaching him the knots she'd pestered then-Lieutenant Norrington into teaching her, and he knew Barbossa had corrected what had never been a mistake.

"Try not t' get us killed when we hit our first bit o' weather," Flanagan hissed to her in passing. Will saw her ball up her fists and bite her lip, and then she marched over to him.

"Enough of this," she spat.

"Elizabeth, he's a spiteful villain, and he hates us. What can you do?"

"Not, him the crew. I've had enough of his poisoning them against us, and their sneering and disdain."

"We can't change that either."

"We can. We're going to make friends," she said, in a tone that suggested making friends was a process in which the uncooperative were often grievously injured.

- SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS -

When they got off watch, she vanished and met him again at the min hatch armed with two mugfuls of rum. He caught her arm as she began to descend. "Elizabeth, these men tried to…"

"To force me, yes, I know. But we're going to be on this ship with them for at least five months. We can't have them hating us that long; they won't listen to us that way. And besides, they're less interested in me now that some of them have apparently decided I'm a man."

Will sighed and tried to pull a smile. "Who'd have ever expected Jack to be protecting your virtue, eh?"

"Oh, he might have done all right against other people."

"Others? You said…"

"That it meant nothing? It _didn't_. But of course Jack was interested. I dare say the only women he was never the least interested in were his mother and the Tortuga girls who charged more than two bits."

"Elizabeth!"

"Think of it as getting into character," she replied and vanished down the stairway.

The crew deck was cramped and too low-ceilinged to walk upright. Will picked his way around the galley tables spanning its breadth, turning time and again to hold a swinging hammock aside for Elizabeth, who followed with the mugs. One of the far tables was crowded with men. A number of lanterns hung above their heads, thickening the air with smoke that was colorless but sharp to the eyes. They drew level with the table, and Will saw they were dicing. He winced at the rattle of the cups, but at least it coin changing hand here, not years. Elizabeth nudged him.

"Hello, lads." He slid warily onto a spare bit of bench, straddling it so Elizabeth could sit safely resting against his chest. She set one of the mugs before him and squeezed onto the bench.

"Well, look an' see how the children have come," sang out one of the men, Gill maybe. "So the cap'n's finished raking ye over the coals, has 'e?"

"For the moment, thankfully."

"Aye, 'til the next time one o' ye two go muckin' up." That one was O'Roarke. Will remembered him.

"I don't intend for there to be a next time," Elizabeth cut in proudly.

Gill again. "Don't matter what _you_ intend. A woman goes pretendin' she can crew, ill comes of it. Ye ain't got the strength it takes, an' any c'n see or hear when ye speak ye're all highbred 'n' delicate."

"It wasn't my hauling he was criticizing; it was my knot work. I _thought_ I knew how to tie a sheet bend."

Will stroked her arm. "You did it right…" but Gill spoke over him.

"_Every _sailor knows that." Will swallowed a mouthful of rum to cover the moment. God, it was awful. Elizabeth sipped hers absently while she sized up Gill.

"Will you show me then? They won't take me out of the watch rotation as short as we are, so at least I can learn to do it right."

"Won't help. Ye're still too frail." O'Roarke was really loathsome, that's all there was to it.

"I've the strength of any ship's boy, certainly."

"Aye, if ye aren't a boy yerself, that is," put in a new and bitter voice. And there was Braxton, the nasty brute who'd worn a gaudy bandage around his wrist their first days at sea.

"There are strange consequences to sailing with a witch," Elizabeth retorted. "I didn't ask for that."

Now the dice games had halted. Every man's interest was on the conversation.

"Asked or not – there's somethin' unnatural about ye."

"A lot of the men won't believe what they don't see."

"One way t' settle the question!"

"Show some respect!" Will barked, tightening his arm around Elizabeth's waist.

"I shall most certainly not be disrobing to satisfy your curiosity!"

"Ah, she's as prissy as a girl, mates!"

"Besides," she added sniffily, "it rather makes me wonder whether you're angling for glimpse of a lady or a boy."

Will gaped. He'd always loved Elizabeth practicing swords with him and the slightly shocking things she sometimes said. If she didn't quite fit in high society, it meant society couldn't take her away from a humble blacksmith. 'In character,' she'd said. It occurred to him only now, just where, with a little _exaggeration_ of her character, Elizabeth might fit. Because the men were delighted.

"Oho! Hear how she talks! Been hangin' round in rough company too long, have ye, missy? Been hearin' stories? What 'ave you heard?"

"Nothing I'd care to repeat to you nor you to me. I am, however, still awaiting a demonstration of a sheet bend."

"Hmmph."

"I won't disrobe, but…" She held out her mug, and rum rations were tight enough what with the hold space devoted to Barbossa's wine that this was quite an offer. "Please?"

They were back again the next night, and the night after that. And a night or two after that, the skinny one called Whippet parted his tankard from his lips thoughtfully, peered at Elizabeth, and drawled, "You said Cap'n Jack died t' save 'is crew." Heads up and down the table turned toward them.

Elizabeth grinned. "Yes, I did." She sipped her rum.

"Well?" Gill pressed.

"Do you want to hear the story?"

"O' course, lass. Mr. Gibbs said ye're the only one what could tell it a'right."

"That's no more than the truth," she nodded. "I was the last one off _The Pearl _before she went down. Mr. Gibbs did tell you about the kraken, I'm sure?"

Murmurs of 'aye' and 'that he did' from all sides.

"Well then, the kraken, foul and deadly as it was, was enslaved by Davy Jones, and he'd set it to hunt Jack, and only Jack, on account of his debt. Now, quite honestly, I may have spoken a bit hastily before. You shouldn't think him too much of a hero; he was running from that monster as any sensible man would. But when it caught up, you see, it would have killed him to leave _The Pearl _just as much as to stay. He said to me, he said, 'Lizzie' – and don't you get any ideas," she pointed all around the circle with the mouth of her bottle, "_no one_ calls me 'Lizzie;' Captain Sparrow might be alive today if he hadn't, but he said, 'Lizzie, it's no good…"

"Gah!"

"Augh!"

"Holy mother of God!"

"What?" Elizabeth looked 'round at them all, quite exasperated.

"Elizabeth, you sounded _just_ like him," Will answered uneasily. "Like during the ritual."

"I…really?"

He nodded, and the other men shifted nervously.

Elizabeth sat in shock for a moment then laughed shakily to the men. "Blasted witch, eh?" Mutters of agreement. "So! Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"…Aye."

"Do you want to hear it with proper impersonations or not?"

There was a short silence before it occurred to Whippet that this was actually an excellent turn of events for their entertainment. "Aye!" The others were inspired to agree.

"All right then." Will could see Elizabeth was working herself up for some really elaborate flourishes. Jack would have been proud. "So Captain Jack said to me, "Ahh, Lizzie, it's no good, love, I can't go. Wouldn't be right for me _Black Pearl_ t' face such an ugly beastie alone.' And I said, 'Jack, you said yourself she's just a ship.' And _he_ said, 'No one ever believes anything I say; don't you start now. Anyway, it works out for you and the lads quite nicely, don't it?' And I said that we wouldn't ever leave without him. 'Not t' worry, I've got a plan,' he said, and he gave me this look – which is the look he gives when he's thought of something good and wants to be mysterious about it. And I gave him _this_ look – which is the look I give when someone had better tell me something or get slapped. So he says, 'What I'm going t' do, love, is take me sword, an' when that pestiliferous blight upon creation opens its nasty maw, I'm going t' jump straight in.' 'You're an idiot, Jack," I said, because he was. And he said, 'No tears now, Liz' – and I _wasn't_ crying – 'ye're ruinin' the part where this saves all your lives. Get on with ye.' And so I left him there on _The Pearl_, and we all got away, and that was how it happened."

"You lied to them," Will said later when they'd emerged from the belowdecks into the clean night air.

"Well, I couldn't very well tell them about any kissing when we've so recently got them off trying to jump me in the hold."

"A very good point," he conceded.

**A/N 2: **Hope everyone enjoyed. If you liked it, loathed it, or had any thoughts at all, even something as out there as "This reminded me of marshmallows," I'd love to hear them.


	3. Maneuvers at Sea

**Disclaimer: **I don't own it. But my birthday's in a couple days, and I'm feeling hopeful...

**A/N: **Many thanks to Tutu and Tigerlillys, who reviewed the last chapter!

And without further ado...

**Chapter 3: Maneuvers at Sea**

Elizabeth screamed. It was a sharp burst of a shriek that she bit off abruptly as she sank to her knees on the deck. Behind her Gibbs threw down the cat-o'-nine and scooped up her discarded shirt. "Merciful God, Miss," he whispered, crouching beside her and handing her her clothing, "forgive me."

Elizabeth clutched the wad of linen to her bare chest. For all she couldn't have stood at that moment, she sat stiff and straight, breathing heavily through her teeth. "Of course, Mr. Gibbs," she hissed. Her head swiveled, and she picked out the captain with blurry vision. "It was only orders." She grinned – grimaced – at Hector Barbossa like a creature tensed to bite.

"Enough spectacle! Get her below!" the captain barked, and his first mate gingerly curled rough hands around her near-unmarked biceps – only a single lash had wrapped that way – well avoiding her flayed back, and helped her to her feet. She winced as he lifted one arm over his shoulders and Cotton ducked under her other, and then the two men led her slowly to the companionway steps. The rest of the original crew, _The Pearl's _crew, followed in a knot, casting black glances back at Barbossa as they went.

Stretched out on the bunk in her cabin, she gritted her teeth and dug her nails into Gibbs's proffered hand while Marty bathed her back with water and rum. "Sorry, sorry," the small man muttered.

"As you should be. It's not proper grog without lemon. Squeeze some on, and I'll forgive you." Marty's jaw dropped, and he shook his head smiling. A moment later Ragetti's always belated chuckle sounded from the hallway, where the man was tearing strips of fresh bandage. "Heh, proper grog. With lemon, heh, heh."

"You lot clear out. Make way," she heard Pintel's grating voice next.

"No harm meant."

"Beg pardon, but the lads on deck be just wantin' to know how Miss Liz's doin'." That – that had been Gill, and before him, Tops, another of the new Tortuga hands. Elizabeth smiled.

"Takes more'n small shot to scupper a schooner," retorted the parrot.

"An' you c'n tell 'em he said that," Ragetti added.

Pintel elbowed his way into the tiny room then and thrust a bottle in front of Elizabeth's face. "Brought ye this."

"Thank God." She struggled into a sitting position, grabbed the rum, and pulled the cork with her teeth. After one deep swig, she settled and sipped daintily as Marty wrapped her in Ragetti's bandages.

Gibbs leaned against the cabin wall, staring at his boots. "Lass…Miss Elizabeth," he sighed. "We're all sorrier'n can be told over what we did t' ye…but ye gotta know ye can't be actin' as ye did."

"So I see."

"He…had the right o' things."

"By the letter of the law, perhaps."

"Aye, well, he's a hard man. But…Miss Elizabeth, them what goes stirrin' up trouble on a ship aren't hardly no better'n mutineers. Aren't hardly no better'n _him_."

"Yes. Thank you, Mr. Gibbs."

He huffed a lighter, relieved sigh, and bent down to meet her eyes. "Is there anythin' else ye're needin', lass?"

Oh, she'd been right to scream when he struck her. "Could you check on Will, please? See if he's all right and tell him I am?"

"O' course. Ye get yer rest now."

Her crowd of rough attendants filed away, and Elizabeth slumped just an inch against her bindings. She swallowed a few more mouthfuls of rum; the liquor burned her throat and soothed the sting in her back. It leant her a blessedly welcome drowsiness. She corked the bottle and eased down to lie on her stomach. A smile touched her lips. The tears were gone from her face and the blood from her body, and it had been a very good day.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Elizabeth felt ill when she woke the next day. There was a deep ache in her shoulders, a lesser, throbbing one in her head, and a third mysterious and bitter pain she could feel quite clearly yet not place. It had been a twisted thing she'd done yesterday, and she hadn't wanted a reminder of all she'd thought and realized that night in Tia's swamp. She'd lain awake then in her nest of rags and brocade, feeling a withered seed of hope cold and pricking within her breast. There'd been an instant when Tia had first hinted they could bring Jack back when she'd thought everything could be fixed. But she'd found herself for the first time without the innocence to cling to such a pretty thought. They could give Jack back his life, but she would still have taken it from him. She'd heard herself vowing to sail under Barbossa, and she'd known that whatever any of them did to fix this ghastly, sorrowful mess, nothing could fix the cause of it, fix her.She would always be a person who did things in moments of necessity that she could not have imagined doing a second earlier.

It was fine, she'd told herself grimly, good even, now that she knew. If she had to be cursed with an ugly gift, knowing meant she could at least use it where she chose. She would do whatever was necessary to bring Jack back and undo what she would never have done had it not been necessary.

Now it was all going rather well, and yet she found she didn't _know_ at all. She'd not been wrong, but… She'd thought she'd made her peace that night – she'd certainly tried, lying there, staring into the darkness, forcing her mind around the ideas of the things she might have to do. She'd told herself 'anything' and thought it the end of any naivete. Too right, that was it; she'd been more right then than she'd been able to understand. It turned out there was no predicting what 'anything' might entail – and she would still do it, so there was no predicting herself. 'Anything' might mean things no one had thought of before, _thinking _of things no one had thought of before. What she'd done yesterday – it hadn't been so terrible, just nasty, just an inspiration that she shouldn't have been able to have.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Yesterday had been a day like any other in the weeks they'd been sailing – too much like some other days, for Barbossa had jeered at her knot work again and ordered her to repair the damage she'd done. Gill had been at her side in an instant, disgusted and scowling. "Are ye completely useless?" he'd hissed. "Can ye remember nothing I showed ye?"

"I haven't redone it, see for yourself." She'd held up the two lines she'd joined. "Or maybe he thinks you taught me wrong?"

"I taught ye fine, lass!" Gill'd snarled; then he'd recognized what she was showing him. His shoulders had dropped, and he'd looked after the captain in bewilderment. "There's nothin' he could fault in that join."

Elizabeth had nodded, a short quick movement, and dropped the lines. "I'm sorry, Captain, but I can't follow that order," she'd called out in a carrying voice. Gill'd gaped at her and scuttled away, quick enough to beat any crab.

Barbossa, halfway across the deck, had whipped about. "Ye _what?"_

"I can't correct my work with these lines. There's nothing wrong." She'd heard a relieved sigh somewhere off to her left when she didn't add 'ask Gill.'

"Are ye suggestin' ye know yer work better'n yer captain does?"

"I was merely suggesting you'd misjudged my work in a moment of carelessness, but if that's your explanation…it could be true. I certainly know _your _work is to induce your crew to labor rather than to interfere with their doing so."

"Hush, girl!" Gibbs had appeared at her elbow, and she'd caught a glimpse of Will's horrified face high aloft.

"Consider how ye're speakin' t' me, girl, on me own deck. Is it worth it?" A wave of cruel laughter had swept the deck, Braxton's loudest of all.

"Most likely not." She'd shrugged, turning her head disdainfully, and seen Gill whisper to one of the laughing men, seen the man's mirth fade and his gaze settle on her with shock and trepidation. "I dare say it would be worth quite a bit if I could persuade you to let me go about my duties on this ship without being hindered in simple tasks. I expect, though, I'm risking a great deal merely for the pleasure of calling you a fool."

Barbossa'd looked positively delighted in a hungry way. "I don't think ye've a _full_ appreciation o' the consequences ye're courtin'. Fer this sort o' behavior, the punishment is…"

"Don't you dare harm her, Barbossa!" Will'd swung from the ratlines and come striding across the deck. "If you didn't torment her every moment of the day, she wouldn't have to do this."

"Silence, Mr. Turner. She don't _have_ t' do this at all, but since she is, it's between me an' her. You c'n have yer chance to make a cryin' scene another day."

"I'll not stand by, and let you…"

"Oh, I think ye _will._" A motion to Braxton and Bandele had had the two hulking men seizing hold of Will's arms. "Now. I believe the gen'rous thing t' do would be t' give the lass enough rope t' hang herself." The laughter was thinner then; Barbossa'd glanced 'round in surprise but pressed on. "She was callin' me a fool, I think."

"Not such a fool that you can't see how foolish you're being, I hope." Will'd moaned at that as he struggled with his captors.

"The only fool I see here is a whinin', rich chit what thinks her birth an' her fancy airs _mean _somethin' on a pirate ship. Any sailor'll tell ye, Highness, that at sea the captain gives the orders, an' the crew obeys, an' there don't be nothin' that changes that."

Men had begun trickling up from below decks. The full crew was massing, and whispers had lapped like the sea beneath Barbossa's thundering and her lightning retorts

"The moment you give an order of any worth, I'll gladly follow it," she'd snapped back, and the whispers had splashed and eddied as if she'd dropped a stone in a pool. Gill's account of her knot work would be a current in that pool.

"Ye're questionin' my fitness t' command, then?"

"More than questioning."

"So it's mutiny?"

"Mutiny? Honestly! Do you see any evidence of conspiracy?" The entirety of _The Pearl's _crew had clustered at her back by that point; she'd stepped forward and away from them. "Have I suggested you cease being captain? I've only requested that you cease making such a poor job of it. _Some_ captains would never put a petty grudge before the workings of their ship."

"Stand down, Miss Elizabeth, for God's sake." She could have then. She'd scored the point she'd wanted and a snatch of conversation she'd overheard in the mess had floated through her mind –

"_The other cap'n, the dead 'un, he don't sound so bad the way the girl tells it."_

"_Don't matter, still dead…" _

– telling her there wasn't any use trying to sow more support for Jack. But the rest of that conversation played out in her head –

"'_Sides, the only thing wrong with the cap'n we've got is that he's takin' us after the other when it's no gain t' us." _

"_That's the witch, though."_

"_Right. The only problem with the cap'n we've got is that he takes orders from a witch. Can't think why he does."_

"_She's got somethin' over him, I suspects. A debt he can't escape or the like. Witches go in fer that sort o' thing."_

"_Without her, I reckon he'd be a fine cap'n fer some regular piratin'. Plunderin' an' whatnot."_

"_An' the witch don't have nothin' over us…" _

That had been the moment of inspiration. Not to mention that the point of no return had lain far behind her, and onwards now was better than a full stop.

"Let it be, Gibbs; I must speak to him," she'd said, low and quite firm.

"Please, miss, ye've no place speakin' so…" Ragetti'd moaned.

Cotton had plucked her sleeve and pointed meaningfully at his own pressed and silent lips.

"Don't bring yourselves into this."

"Well, now, as I hear givin' orders to me crew before me very face, I think it is mutiny! And that's a dyin' offense, Miss Swann."

"Hardly mutiny, Captain, only simple insubordination. For which I understand the penalty is considerably less severe." She'd glared a challenge at him, and the deck had fallen silent. Barbossa'd glanced uneasily at their too-solemn audience, and widened his sneer dramatically.

"Powerful unconcerned, ye are. What is it ye're countin' on t' save ye, I wonder? Can't be yer young man – ye can see he's right tied up at the moment. An' it won't be yer fair sex neither. Ye'd do well t' remember that yer _not_ a woman here, missy, yer a member o' this crew!"

Elizabeth had laughed shortly and stared as if daring him to repeat what he'd just said. "Then flog me like one," she'd drawled.

Will'd shouted 'Elizabeth!' and Gibbs had murmured 'Oh, _Miss…_" A few gasps and sharp breaths had hissed through the air, and it had still been too quiet.

Barbossa'd reared back, glowering all around the deck. "Can't hardly refuse a request like _that_." He'd bit off the words like he wanted to taste their blood. "Sam, fetch the cat!"

"No!"

"Enough from you!" the captain had roared, rounding on Will. "The _point _here, since ye seem t' be missin' it, is that ye do _not_ gainsay me word."

"Don't flog her. Please. I'll take the lashes myself."

"Will, stop it."

"More orders from you, Cap'n Swann? Well, by all means, let's give yer loyal man the chance t' serve ye. Ye can _give _her the lashes, boy!"

Will had drawn himself up and returned his most righteous glare. "You can't believe I'll do that."

"It'll be that or the brig."

"That's not even a choice." Young Sam had stepped up then, trembling, and tried to force the cat-o'-nine-tails into Will's hand, but he'd curled his fingers into fists against his chest.

"The brig it'll be then, Mr. Turner, _after _ye've enjoyed the show. Fortunate, isn't it, that Miss Swann has so _many_ admirers. Ye may _all _pay yer respects, gentlemen. A lash from each of you," he'd snarled at the crew of _The Pearl,_ still clustered behind Elizabeth, "and ye _will_ make her feel them!"

Two of Tia's men had dragged her before the mast. "Strip her," Barbossa'd ordered, but Elizabeth's own hands had reached her buttons first, and she'd held the men off with a glower as she removed her shirt. Soon she'd stood nearly as clothed as before, swathed in the length of cloth that bound her breasts. "That too," the captain had sneered, and that time Claude was quicker; he'd stepped up behind her, and his knife had sawed the bindings through. Elizabeth had set her teeth and would have blushed if her color hadn't already been as high as it could go. She'd whirled to face the mast, though it hid little to do so, and raised her hands to grip a lantern hook.

"Get on with it," she'd growled.

There'd been Will's shouts behind her until someone – probably one of the men holding him – had forced something – probably a bit of line – between his teeth. Then the silence had pressed heavily against her back, the inevitable sea sounds and Will's muffled struggles not lightening it an ounce.

Sad, slow footsteps, a sigh, a whistle, and then searing pain across her shoulders. She'd gasped and thrown back her head and fought to keep her awareness from blurring. With her eyes clenched shut there'd been no telling who landed what blow – difficult enough keeping straight which blow was which; five had never been such a hard, high number to count before. She'd heard Barbossa growling 'ye _will _watch, boy!' and the sound of Will retching. She'd concentrated on not screaming. There'd come a light touch on her shoulder and Gibbs's voice sorrowful in her ear – "Ye have to know ye earned this twice over, lass." Her eyes had slit open to see his squeezed shut. The old sailor'd stepped back, and the blow had fallen hard. She'd let herself scream.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

It had been as sordid and brutal as…as she'd meant it to be. _God_. And yet, when Elizabeth stepped on deck that day, the men were watching Barbossa with hard eyes and grumbling over their 'aye, captain's,' and she felt rather better.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Not having been designed with the transport of prisoners in mind, _The Burgundy_ didn't have much in the way of a brig. What she did have was an empty corner of the hold with a few sets of chains and irons bolted stoutly to the bulkhead. Will sat slumped and locked into one of them, gazing at nothing. Nothing was all there was to gaze at. The hold was dark as the depths, and even if he'd had light to see, there'd not have been a half-pin barrel hinge in sight, nor anything within the reach of his chains that could have furnished a tool. Simplicity, it seemed, made the best jailer.

Of course, even if he could have escaped this fetid pit below the waterline, he'd still be on the ship. And even if he could escape the ship, he wouldn't go while there was still a mission…or two…to complete, nor while Elizabeth was still aboard. All the ways he couldn't escape were merely a handful of the too few things to think about in the too many dark hours of imprisonment.

Then again, if he could escape, he could steal above decks just for moment to check on Elizabeth, to make sure she'd been as well-tended as Gibbs had said, that she was healing…

A speck of brightness glimmered somewhere off in the hold. It disappeared then appeared again more strongly. A lantern was making its way toward him, carried by some unseen person. It weaved its way among the bins and bales and barrels of cargo, and then Elizabeth herself stood before him.

"You shouldn't be here," he told her in shock.

She knelt before him with barely a grimace. "Never mind that, are you all right?"

"Why would _I_ not be all right?"

"Possibly because you're chained and held prisoner _here_." She shuddered, and it was enough to express all her horror of dark and enclosed places. Even in the governor's airymansion he'd seldom seen her anywhere but at the windows.

"I'm fine. But, Elizabeth, you shouldn't be up. You were beaten."

"It only aches some." Her face looked wan, but the lantern light was yellow and uncertain and her voice had been stern, so Will let it pass.

"I'm sorry," he told her instead. "I'm so sorry I couldn't stop them."

"There was no stopping it after the things I said. Don't worry over it. Now, let's just get you out of here."

"What?" he asked, and then he saw what was thrust through her belt. "What's that for?"

Elizabeth pulled the cat-o'-nine free and held it out to him. "I spoke to Barbossa. Before witnesses," she added with an odd, sharp flare of satisfaction. "If you'll give me the lash you owe, he'll let you out."

The chains held him less tightly than Braxton and Bandele had; Will recoiled more violently than he had on deck. "I'll never strike you, Elizabeth, that's why I'm here."

"Exactly. That's why doing it will get you out."

"I'd rather spend my life down here."

She smiled at him fondly and stroked his cheek. "That won't help anything. Come now." Her other hand kept holding out the horrible lash; Will pushed it down gently.

"Better to stay in chains than to hurt you."

"It will hurt me more to think of you suffocating in this pit," she returned, a stubborn edge creeping into her voice.

"I'm strong enough for it, Elizabeth. I'll bear it for you."

"I'm not asking you to! This is no time for nobility, Will; I need you up there!"

That did give him pause. He clasped her arms and searched her face with his insides twisting. "Do the men still trouble you, Elizabeth?" he demanded.

"_No_." And thank God there was no doubting that, the pure contempt with which she dismissed the idea that that ugliness could have anything to do with this one.

"Then we can be strong, darling, and wait this out. We mustn't give in to barbarism because _he _demands it."

"_I_ demand it, Will. This is needless! It's a single lash, for pity's sake!"

"For pity's sake, I _won't._" She was getting hysterical, it seemed, and it frightened him badly. He put a hand to her cheek and met her eyes. He spoke low and quick and hoped desperately to be soothing. "It's not needless, Elizabeth. You must never suffer for me. I know you fear for me down here, but you needn't. I'm glad to do this – I'll show those cringing pirates how to have a little honor, eh? And I'll show you that I'll never, never hurt you. Do you not believe that, Elizabeth?" He pulled her into an embrace and stroked her hair. "You've been spending too much time around terrible men, but you must believe that I would never harm you for my own gain, dearest, nor for _anything_. You may rely on it."

"Not for anything?"

"Not for anything."

She lifted her head to gaze at him seriously. "Not because I asked you to?"

"That's a terrible thing to ask."

"Yes. Of course it is." He didn't understand the flatness in her voice.

"Elizabeth?"

"Nothing, Will. I have to return to deck. Thank you," she said oddly. "Stay well."

Then she, and the light, were gone.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

He was released the next day. Barbossa himself stomped through the hold with a ring of clanking keys. "It seems we'll make a pirate out o' ye yet, boy," he leered as he set key to irons, and Will had never heard so much mockery in so few words.

Elizabeth was waiting for him when he pulled himself up the hatch steps into the splinteringly bright and welcome light of day.

"Why did he relent?" he asked her.

"Why do you suppose? I took one of Pintel's watches last night in exchange for another stripe and told him you did it. Just think, if you had, I could have had my beating and my night's rest both."

"He _charged_ you to strike you? I'll…"

"You'll nothing," she snapped. "It was fair. He had something I needed."

He watched her stride off angrily across the deck, quite at a loss. "I'll...take this watch for you," he called after her.

"It's your watch too," she shot back and kept striding.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

There was a difference in the atmosphere aboard _The Burgundy_ when Will emerged from the brig. A tension had gone out of the air. Not that there was no tension in the air – Barbossa watched Elizabeth with tightly bound resentment; she made a show of _nearly _ignoring him; the crew aimed sullen glowers at the captain, and he showed them what passed for a pirate's courtesy; _The Pearl's_ men trailed after Elizabeth slavishly; the Tortuga hands seemed as coarse as they ever were; the Domingans looked on over everything with utter impassivity; Tia regarded him, Will, with a constant weight of consideration and Elizabeth with inexplicable amusement… But it was a tension that could last. Barbossa wasn't stomping about after him and Elizabeth waiting to strike, nothing seemed about to explode. Well, of course, Will reasoned, it already had. Now, finally, people were willing to sail for a while.

They carried on south and east for weeks. Will was relieved to see the disturbing character Elizabeth had been playing fall away. After a couple of days she stopped biting off every word she said to him and apologized for her greeting when he'd been released. She'd been tired, she said, and sore. She no longer dragged him below to the crew decks; and slowly, slowly the line between her brows and the constant rigid set of her shoulders eased. Most days she joined him in his morning sword drills, and those times were as pleasant as any spent aboard a pirate ship bound for some unholy corner of the globe on a mission of necromancy could be. It was a measure of joy to admire her graceful movements cutting the dawn light and the way her blade sliced the cool breezes whisper thin. He recalled the thrilling little conspiracy of their secret practices at the forge or in the back of the governor's garden and rejoiced in her uncanny quickness to learn. It was compliment to his skill as a teacher, and a great good fortune that she'd become a sparring partner who honed _him,_ prepared him all the more to face Davy Jones whenever that day might come.

Will'd tried several times early in the voyage to question the other sailors about Davy Jones, but it never took more than a few words to show that however much they had to _say_ about the heartless captain, what they _knew_ was nothing next to what his own stint actually crewing on _The Dutchman_ had taught him. After that he contented himself with Bootstrap's knife – it became a razor-edged, gleaming thing, with not a barnacle in sight – and pondering what leverage could possibly convince Jack to pursue Jones once they had the man alive again.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Gibbs had noticed how Will fiddled with that knife – most of the crew had, in fact, and thought it odd. There was no end of time to kill on an ocean voyage, and many sailors passed it with blades in their hands. Generally, though, they whittled something; young Will seemed content to turn the blade over and over and give it deep looks. Not at all like Miss Elizabeth. The difference…well, the difference was that she never down so much. She looked out. He'd come upon pressed up to the rail in the bow one day. "Goin' t' be the first t' spot him, Miss?" he'd joked.

She'd shaken her head, and sucked in a giant gulp of the salt air. "No, Mr. Gibbs," she'd grinned at him, "I'm going to be the first to spot everything." And the lass was delighted when she was the one to sight Cape Town.

They made port there for a few days. It was a ferociously thriving little city that spread out across a scrubby sand plain beneath the five towers of the Castle of Good Hope. Where the buildings ended, black-skinned men and women tended grape vines just as Caribbean slaves did sugarcane, and not far inland a flat-topped mountain rose up, pinningthe settlement between cliffs and sea. They drank strange red tea and loaded _The Burgundy _with funny shaped fruits. The speech they heard surrounding them was strange too – or, rather, the speech was Dutch and the strange thing was that the few people who made a bad job of pretending not to eavesdrop on them seemed too angry about who-knew-what to speak to them in the English they clearly knew. They finally had the good fortune one day to be mistaken for Huguenots, and the tale spun for them in French and translated by Elizabeth was that but a few weeks back an enormous English warship had had the audacity to drop anchor in the harbor, take on an insultingly small store of provisions, and send _no _delegation, _no _message, _no_ greeting of any kind to the castle. Seals covered in fur sunned themselves on the rocks of Cape Pennisula as they sailed away, one more degree south, and around the Cape itself.

The men got into good spirits after their time ashore and remembered that there'd been no initiation for Will and Elizabeth when they'd crossed the Equator. They chased the two of them all over the deck, slinging buckets of seawater and flailing at them with knotted lengths of rope. It was an odd day. Tia Dalma got angry, frighteningly angry, when Whippet was fool enough to turn a bucket over her head – even though the water didn't wet her a bit. It was a sight none of them had seen before nor wanted to see again, but once the witch had stormed off to her cabin, the games had picked back up. The men must not have aimed their buckets with much care or swung their ropes hard enough, because Elizabeth had actually laughed over their torments. But then she was an odd girl.

He didn't remember when, but she'd taken at some point to insisting he'd already told her all his best yarns and spinning him endings he'd never heard himself. She gamed with the men at their cards and dice – not enough lads with a healthy dose of superstition on this voyage – they'd decided those damn spooky impressions of Jack she could do ever since the witch's spell were high entertainment, and mostly she staked those. He couldn't fathom how she'd talked them out of their original notion that she play for kisses, but then there was not saying no to her. She'd asked him about navigation, and somehow he'd ended up borrowing the captain's instruments and almanacs right out of his cabin. She'd flipped open an almanac and fingered those columns of black little numbers like they were gold. "Who does this?" she'd asked him, "and how do they know where the stars will be every hour of every night?"

He'd shrugged. "Learned men," was all he could tell her, "an' they do it with maths I couldn't fathom if I stirred 'em in grog an' drank 'em down. But ye c'n ask Jack fer a proper answer when we get 'im back."

She was a good lass, though. Will'd found them at it that very day, and the boy'd had a bit of a gift for her. Apparently it was her birthday, which seemed to surprise her as much as it did him. Will'd handed her a bracelet made of that fancy knot work Marty knew how to do. He'd seemed embarrassed to be giving her something so poor and offered to cast it in silver for her when they finally got back to his master's forge, but she'd declared it lovely and tied the ropy little thing around her wrist straightaway. They were both fine childreneven if the boy was a bit of a stick.

They stopped again, not so long after Cape Town, and just before striking off straight across the expanse of the Indian Ocean, at another port, a little nowhere of a waystation in the Mascarene Islands. It seemed pirates and merchants kept a truce there based solely on the notion that there were more interesting places to wage the timeless battle. The town was tiny with only a few other ships anchored in the harbor, but Barbossa still managed to find exactly what he was looking for. He returned to the ship with something struggling in a sack, shouting orders to get underway with all speed and cackling over fools who believed in truces. The contents of the sack turned out to be Lin Shan, a seething, trembling Chinese deckhand, who stammered curses at them in both Cantonese and English, and whom Barbossa declared their translator.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

Lin Shan was hustled down to the hold and into Will's old set of shackles. Elizabeth was astonished when Marty was the first to plunge into the depths of the ship and demand the new prisoner teach him Cantonese. She followed close on his heels, though, and on hers came Tia Dalma, spilling questions about ghosts and temples and gateways to the dead. The first thing Lin Shan told them was that he would be damned before he helped his captors so much as stick a pin in their own eyes. She gave a glance to Marty and he traded one back to her, and it was the beginning of an alliance.

Marty, it turned out, was a fascinating character with a policy that a pirate of trifling stature had best make up the lack with as many unusual skills as he could master. The two of them took it in shifts to be almost constantly below decks, sharing water, rum, a piece of fruit nabbed from the ship's fresh stores, or a simple kind word with the prisoner. They wheedled with Tia who leaned on Barbossa, and soon the captive was out of his chains. After that great chunks of her off-watch hours were taken up sitting with Marty and Shan in the shade of the forecastle steps, twisting up her face in concentration and uttering awkward nonsense syllables that bore a distant resemblance to the ones Shan intoned. More time went into teaching Marty to read – though not to write. He'd already taught himself to mimic beautifully any specimen of penmanship you cared to put to before him, and he was glad to demonstrate the art to Elizabeth.

On watch, matters had locked themselves into a stalemate. Barbossa no longer railed at her for sheer incompetence; now he gave her the slimiest or most backbreaking work and the most scorching watches. Half the time she did as he ordered, the other half she managed to gamble her tasks away to rest of the crew. Days went by without the two of them speaking a word to each other, but she listened, and if he began to sound friendly toward the men, quite coincidentally the collar of her shirt would slip low in the back. It kept a sort of peace.

And the miles drowned in their wake.

- SSSSSSSSSSS -

My Lord Beckett,

We left Madras today with the morning tide. I found operations in the factory there to be in splendid order, far outstripping those of Surat and approaching the prosperity of Bombay. Indeed, the warehouses were full nearly to capacity, and the factor indicated that he believes the site could support a considerably greater frequency of shipping and a more rapid turnover of stock if only the security of the merchant vessels in the area could be more reliably assured.

I was received with all courtesy at Fort St. George, where I oversaw the implementation of the new communications system. The were some questions regarding the procedures with the lanterns, but the authority of your signature upon the edicts went a great way toward easing the adoptionof the unorthodox advancements.

We now proceed onward to Bengal with all the expediency Jones's altered winds can grant us, and I look forward to a successful interview with the Nawab there. We had the good fortune to take on in Madras a seaman freshly come from the court at Dacca. He has apprised us of the current events at court and agreed to serve as our translator in matters of language and custom.

This man, Rohan, has furthermore imparted that the Nawab is more than notorious as a gourmet. If possible, I would request that immediately before our audienceJones transport to us a selection delicacies of a perishable nature and a distinctly English or Caribbean flavor. I believe any sort of cheeses or fresh creams would be considered particularly exotic here. It is a triviality, I admit, but I believe such a personalizedand mysterious gift would do much to cause the Nawab to look more favorably on our petition to establish a settlement in the region of Kalikata.

Another interesting bit of information I acquired in port is that legend seems to hold throughout all the East Indies that the Portuguese won the extraordinary privileges granted them in the port of Macau by impressing the Imperial representative in Canton with some stunning victory over pirates of the South China Sea. Whether this be the truth or the Portuguese gained their preference through more ordinary diplomatic tactics, I feel certain the legend has at least reached the Cantonese officials so as to suggest to them how they might reward some daring blow against piracy.

Accordingly, I instructed Jones to make an inspection, and it does indeed seem the entire area within the bounds of Canton, Manila, and Singapore, even extending somewhat down to our own post of Bantam on Java is so rife with piracy that the outlaws' ships nearly equal the merchants' in number. Some organization appears to exist among the pirates with a large faction swearing fealty to a villain by the name of Sao Feng. This arch rogue has his stronghold in Singapore. Such is the fear and respect he commands that when I asked Rohan to comment upon Jones's information, I witnessed him to shudder and glance over his shoulder as if even in at so far a remove as India Feng might be summoned by the sounding of his name.

With your permission, my lord, I believe that after departing Bengal, _The Regis _would do well to put in next in Singapore and search out this Sao Feng as his capture or death would bestow on us significant clout in the upcoming negotiations in Canton. I would also urge an investigation into the feasibility of establishing a shipyard at the Madras factory. Such a facility might supply both cargo vessels for the increased trade the factor wishes to pursue and fighting ships to be used in launching an assault against the pirates of the South China Sea.

Respectfully,

Admiral James Norrington

Cutler Beckett smiled as he laid Admiral Norrington's latest communication on his desk. A shipyard in Madras? Very ambitious, James. But in only a year or two's time, with all going as well as it currently was, it could be a very real possibility. It was foresight, then, and neither hubris nor whimsy with which he had to credit his effective second-in-command. And, of course, it was largely due to James Norrington that things were suddenly going so well as they were – the capture of Jones's heart had been a blessing beyond measure, of course, but even in addition to that… Beckett did not allow himself to be easily impressed and he still had to admit Norrington's handling of his current assignment – that unwieldy bastard child of a triumphal tour and a covert restructuring of the company – had so far been masterful.

Yes, a lucky find, that one. A supremely competent man and – hadn't even reached the China Seas yet and already making plans to confront their pirate king – _driven. _One might say obsessive after that business with the hurricane, but Beckett hoped that insanity had proved its own cure. It had been damned awkward, actually, to promote a man so thoroughly disgraced so meteorically, and yet he'd been rather glad of the complication. It was a sordid but simple fact that really useful men were rarely without black marks upon their histories. Like Mercer, for example. He'd acquired the scars on his face, his unwavering loyalty, and his keen appetite for the pain of others all in the same day.

The sounds of a clatter, a quick snap, and a low cheer drifted through Beckett's open window. What with the increase in hangings and the growing workload that came with mounting successes, he no longer had time to attend every pirate's execution. Lovely that his office overlooked Gallows Point as it did. Yes, everything was going very well indeed.

If only Jones could bring news of the remnants of Sparrow's crew. It wasn't _necessary_, and he'd nearly given up on it at this point, but it would put that extra bit of shine on the whole affair to finish off that rabble – the men who'd been stupid enough to follow a cursed lunatic, the boy who'd turned out such a disappointing investment, the girl who'd proved so damnably, shockingly competent. Still, if Jones had been unable to locate them anywhere on the seas, it meant they'd been driven to land, and that was a sweet thought in itself. Presumably, because the loss of that salt-pickled rat Sparrow left their loyal souls too devastated to sail on. _That_ thought was too sickening to contemplate at all.

He began drafting a communication to Admiral Norrington outlining the moderation with which Sao Feng was to be pursued. Just in case.

**A/N 2: **There it is; do hope you enjoyed. And as always, reviews are very welcome be they comments, questions, praises, or critiques.


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